Why portrayals of therapists in pop culture can be a double-edged sword to be mindful of

While Shah Rukh Khan’s Dr. Jehangir Khan from Dear Zindagi may have convinced many to pursue therapy, others may have found pop culture to be a deterrent to seeking mental health care

Believe it or not, it was Shah Rukh Khan who urged 36-year-old Khushnum Darzi, a resident of Delhi, to seek therapy…or more so his character of therapist Dr. Jehangir Khan from the 2016 coming-of-age drama Dear Zindagi, co-starring Alia Bhatt.

Darzi was battling severe clinical depression—as she was later diagnosed by a psychiatrist—much like Bhatt’s character in the film, and she only has Khan to thank for her progress there on. “Firstly, I am a Shah Rukh Khan fan so it only made sense for me to follow what he had to say. I understand that that might not be the most conventional way of seeking out therapy or taking important life decisions, but really, how can you not believe what Shah Rukh has to say, even if through a character?” she laughs.

Darzi’s experience is a pertinent example of how popular culture and media influence human society, in a hat-tip to real life informing art, and art informing real life. Fortunately, in her instance, the inspiration paid off. However, the nature of such transactions is more wide-ranging and complex, considering pop culture and media travel differently through different terrains.

For Kolkata-based psychologist Nilanjana Chatterjee Chakraborty, this particular film came as a blessing of sorts. “You won’t believe the number of people who came to me saying that they felt encouraged to seek therapy after watching Dear Zindagi. In fact, one of them has saved my number as Jehangir Khan on their phone!” she says.

In most South Asian homes, where conversations around mental health are still riddled with significant prejudice and skepticism, popular icons and works of entertainment can often be crucial to demystifying subjects that are otherwise considered taboo. “I am a lesbian, and for the longest time, I found it impossible to come out to my parents. With this film, somehow all of that became easier because luckily, my parents too, are Shah Rukh fans,” says Darzi.

While films and shows dealing with subjects of mental health have become more commonplace today, especially with the advent of streaming platforms, the past decades have allowed such characters to assume positions front and centre in the narrative only a handful of times.

For psychotherapist Alaokika Motwane, who practices in Goa and Mumbai, the HBO series In Treatment, whose first season aired as far back as 2008—a time when the discourse on mental health was not as accessible as it has been in the past decade, owing to a burgeoning social media culture—comes across as promising in terms of how it portrays the process of therapy. “It comes closest to what actually happens in the therapeutic room. It was a nuanced, realistic, and humanistic portrayal. It gave you two ends and showed you how a therapist (Dr. Paul Weston, played by Gabriel Byrne) is both a professional and a person,” explains Motwane. She also cites the example of the now iconic Dr. Sean Maguire, played by the late Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting (1997). His character marked a departure from a largely one-dimensional illustration of mental health professionals until then, as seen in films like What About Bob? (1991) starring Richard Dreyfuss as a rather inert and reticent Dr. Leo Marvin, the therapist; or the raging cannibal Dr. Hannibal Lecter played by Anthony Hopkins in The Silence Of the Lambs (1991), who, in reality, happened to be a competent psychiatrist. Maguire was shown to be empathetic, patient, and as flawed as his client Will Hunting, played by Matt Damon.

The pitfalls of inaccurate portrayals

While an increased inclusion of mental health professionals in mainstream pop culture narratives has opened doors for further dialogue and awareness on the subject of mental health care, badly-researched, inaccurate representations tend to do more damage than good. Motwane mentions the late Asif Basra’s character of a relationship counsellor in season two of the Amazon Prime Video series The Family Man as being grossly misrepresentative of individuals working in the field. “I was appalled to see that character and how irresponsibly it was written,” she points out, referring to the intrusive, brash and insensitive depiction that can result in viewers becoming wary of mental health professionals. In Season 2 Episode 2 of the series, Basra’s character is shown to be asking prying questions to the lead couple played by Manoj Bajpayee and Priyamani. When they protest and storm out of his clinic, Basra’s character is seen asking his receptionist to charge the couple an extra fee, out of spite.

Meanwhile, the Bengali film Mukherjee Dar Bou (2019)—revolving around a woman’s relationship with her mother-in-law—has mindfully depicted the nuances of approaching the subject of mental health care in Indian households in recent years, according to Chatterjee Chakraborty. On the other hand, some tend to treat the subject frivolously, occasionally even as comic relief.

When Kolkata-based therapist and psychology teacher Rakhi Sengupta, a practitioner for over 20 years, watched Netflix’s comedy series Masaba Masaba, the character of the therapist played by Pooja Bedi left a sour taste in her mouth. “Her demeanour, conduct, even the way she chooses to focus more on her clothes than her work, came across as questionable to me,” she says. Sengupta delineates with an incident from her own life, when, during her initial days of training as a mental health practitioner, she had embarked on a field visit to a slum settlement in Kolkata. “I was wearing a very flashy piece of clothing, when my professor asked me if I thought that would be appropriate for the place I would be walking into, and the people I would be interacting with,” she says. A display of such opulence through one’s sartorial choices—especially against the backdrop of abject dearth and suffering of all kinds—is not only a cause for distraction from the actual dialogue, but also marks an obscene lack of humility, according to Sengupta. “At that moment, I felt humiliated, but I later thanked my teacher for teaching me such a valuable lesson. When I watched Masaba Masaba, I wasn’t even sure what Pooja Bedi’s character was trying to convey through her words, clothes, or even her actions around her patient played by Masaba Gupta,” she says.

Why accurate portrayals are imperative

Such depictions are an indicator of not just apathy, but also inadequate research. In order to circumvent this, Motwane suggests getting real mental health professionals on set. “There were real doctors producing a show like Grey’s Anatomy, where they taught the actors how to hold a surgical knife. Why can’t they do the same for films and shows involving mental health, where there is also a prescribed distance between the therapist and their client,” she says.

In that vein, while Motwane, too, largely agrees with the approach taken by Dear Zindagi in broaching the subject, she does not, however, subscribe to the unconventional methods of therapising outside clinical set-ups like Jehangir Khan is shown to do. Sengupta agrees. “Those four walls need to be established as the safe space between my patient and I, so if there are other factors and people coming in the way, it becomes counterproductive. Moreover, it is also not usual for therapists to speak so much about their personal lives like Khan does, and I wouldn’t recommend doing that either,” says Sengupta, an outlook which Chatterjee Chakraborty differs on.

However, they all admit that therapists should not be thought of as problem solvers or life coaches. “We can merely provide you with the tools to reach your decisions, but can’t take those decisions for you,” says Chatterjee Chakraborty, adding that on several occasions, she has encountered patients who have come to her with the request of setting their lives straight, after having watched something that left them with the impression that that was her job.

The only way to address this gap is to avoid simplifying mental health as a subject, because the human mind is far from simple. “It’s complex. So show the depths and nuances, because that is where the juice of the story lies. Otherwise, you’re doing everybody a disservice. Inaccurate representation is worse than no representation in a lot of ways,” explains Motwane.

Even though cinema, especially Hindi films in India, may have departed significantly from distorted portraitures of mental health professionals—like Akshay Kumar’s character in Bhool Bhulaiyaa (2007), which Sengupta calls out as “facetious” and “agonising” to watch—it still has a long way to go in terms of being more conscientious. “We have actual parameters with which we measure progress in mental health, and employ terms like remission, like they do in cancer therapy. So why aren’t we accorded the same respect in popular discourse?” implores Chatterjee Chakraborty.

Also Read: How news media and pop culture in India dangerously propagate rape culture

Also Read: Why does retail therapy make you feel happier?

Also Read: Indian cinema’s attempts at capturing the reality of domestic violence