What Shrinking Gets Right (and wrong) About Counseling

If you’ve ever watched Shrinking, Ted Lasso, The Sopranos, In Treatment, or one of the many other shows that feature therapists, you may have wondered:

“Is counseling actually like that?”

The short answer is: sometimes. But mostly, not quite.

Television has a fascinating relationship with therapy. Some shows portray counseling with surprising accuracy, while others take significant creative liberties to make the story more entertaining. Which totally makes sense. Real therapy is often subtle, slow-moving, and full of moments that don’t necessarily make for great television.

Still, there are some things these shows get right.

Therapy really is about relationships

One of the most accurate things Shrinking captures is that therapy isn’t just a therapist sitting in a chair and dispensing advice. At its core, counseling is a relationship.

A good therapist is paying attention not only to what a client says, but also to how they say it, what emotions are underneath the words, what patterns show up in the relationship, and what might be most difficult for the client to talk about.

All because therapists are human beings, too. We have personalities. We laugh. We sometimes get emotional. We care about our clients. We can be surprised, challenged, frustrated, encouraged, and moved by the people we work with.

The therapeutic relationship can become one of the most important parts of the work.

But your therapist isn’t going to show up at your house …

This is where television starts taking some liberties.

In Shrinking, therapists cross boundaries that would be highly unusual (and in some cases ethically problematic) in real-world counseling. In the shot, therapists become deeply involved and embedded in their clients’ personal lives. They interact with family members outside of therapy, give very direct advice, and sometimes make decisions on behalf of their clients.

It makes for compelling television, but it isn’t necessarily good therapy.

Professional counseling has ethical and legal boundaries designed to protect clients. Those boundaries can sometimes feel strange from the outside.

Why can’t my therapist be my friend? Why can’t I text them whenever I want? Why can’t they come to my wedding? Why can’t they tell me exactly what they think I should do?

The answer isn’t that therapists don’t care. The boundaries exist because the relationship is important.

A therapist has a unique position of trust and influence in a client’s life. Maintaining appropriate boundaries helps keep that relationship focused on the client’s needs rather than the therapist’s. (If they do start showing up at your house, you may want to start finding a new therapist!)

Therapists don’t have all the answers

Another television trope is the therapist who seems to immediately know exactly what’s going on. A client says three sentences, and the therapist responds with a profound statement that somehow perfectly explains their entire life.

Again, this makes for great television, but real counseling is usually much messier and less clear.

Therapists don’t have a crystal ball. We don’t know exactly why someone behaves the way they do after a single conversation. We don’t always know what a client needs before they know it themselves.

Instead, therapy is often a process of exploration.

Together, therapist and client try to understand patterns, identify what isn’t working, consider different perspectives, develop skills, process experiences, and experiment with new ways of responding.

Sometimes the most helpful thing a therapist can say is not an answer at all. It might just be, “Tell me more about that.”

Therapy isn’t supposed to be a one-sided conversation

Shows often portray therapy as a client talking while the therapist sits quietly and occasionally delivers a profound insight. In real life, counseling can look very different depending on each person involved and the approach.

Some sessions involve a lot of talking. Others involve structured exercises, skill-building, education, mindfulness, problem-solving, exposure work, cognitive restructuring, or processing difficult experiences.

Different evidence-based approaches have different goals and techniques. And sometimes a session really does involve a client sitting on a couch saying, “I don’t know.” That’s therapy, too.

Sometimes therapy is uncomfortable

This is another area where shows can accidentally get something right. Therapy is not always relaxing.

Talking honestly about grief, trauma, shame, relationships, anger, addiction, anxiety, family dynamics, or painful experiences can be incredibly difficult.

A good therapist isn’t necessarily trying to make you feel better every minute you’re in the room. Sometimes the goal is to help you understand something you’ve been avoiding. Sometimes it’s to challenge a belief you’ve held for years. Sometimes it’s to sit with an emotion instead of immediately trying to make it go away.

And sometimes the most important progress happens when a client says something they’ve never felt safe enough to say out loud before.

Your therapist isn’t your best friend

This might be one of the biggest differences between television and real counseling.

A therapist can be warm, funny, compassionate, relatable, and genuinely invested in your well-being. But the relationship is still different from friendship.

Your therapist’s job isn’t to get something from you. They aren’t looking for you to validate them, take care of them, or meet their emotional needs.

The focus is intentionally, and appropriately, on you. That can create a unique kind of relationship: one where you can talk openly about things you might not feel comfortable telling anyone else.

Therapists have therapists

One of the more important things to understand about counseling is that therapists aren’t somehow immune to being human. We experience stress. We have relationships. We make mistakes. We have blind spots. We experience loss. We get overwhelmed. We ALL have our own stories.

Having the title of therapist doesn’t mean you’ve figured out life, it means you’ve chosen to help other people navigate theirs.

So, is Shrinking realistic?

In some ways, absolutely. It captures the humanity, humor, vulnerability, frustration, connection, and complexity that can exist in therapeutic work. However, also majorly exaggerates many aspects of counseling because it’s a television show, not a training video for therapists.

Maybe the best takeaway isn’t to ask whether a show gets therapy exactly right.

Instead, ask yourself: What would it be like to have a space where you could be completely honest with another person without having to take care of them, impress them, or pretend that everything is okay?

That is much closer to what counseling is really about!

At HearHear Counseling, we know therapy likely won't look like it does on television.

It needs to be a place where you can show up as you are. A space to feel heard, and work collaboratively toward the life and relationships you want.

Real therapy may not always make for great television. But it can make a real difference in someone’s life.