The New Adventures of Old Christine

The New Adventures of Old Christine was a sit-com that ran for five seasons, ending in 2010. The show featured actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Christine, a recently divorced mother-of-one trying to balance work, parenting, and dating. Christine is often described as a “neurotic” character, and her many flaws are frequently the punch line for jokes on the show. A running joke throughout the series is her consumption of alcohol, which she uses to cope with loneliness, anger, and just about anything else. Other characters joke about her having a drinking problem and being an alcoholic, but her drinking is more of just a comedic device and she is never shown experiencing major problems as a result of her alcohol use.

It is not until the final season of the show that the field of psychology is featured rather heavily, and in a pretty poor light overall. First, there is Christine’s brother, Matthew. Earlier in the series, Matthew starts medical school, but later decides that he isn’t cut out for the medical field. Instead, he decides to become a therapist. One of Matthew’s first clients is a young female who, in the first session, confesses that she is attracted to men in power. There is some talk by Matthew about how he thinks she is attractive but can’t act on those feelings because she is a patient. He may even basically explain transference, and how that might be a factor for the patient. However, before the end of the session, he disregards everything he has said, and they end up dating for several episodes. This is obviously problematic. In this example, Matthew, the therapist, is clearly taking advantage of the reason that has brought his patient into therapy.

While Matthew is seeing clients, Christine acts as his temporary secretary. It is here that she meets Max, the licensed psychologist that is basically acting as supervisor for Matthew. Christine almost instantly begins spilling all sorts of personal information to him upon finding out he is a psychologist, which is consistent with the emotional lability of her character. Problem number one is that Max agrees to take her on as a client, which surely violates all kinds of boundary ethics in that Christine is technically his employee, and also related to his trainee. The show is set in Los Angeles, California, where there is definitely not a shortage of psychologists, and no reason for those ethical boundaries to be breached. There is no reason for Christine to be receiving therapy from someone so closely linked to her brother.

Christine seeks therapy for emotional issues and relationship problems, and is immediately attracted to the therapist. The audience later finds out that the therapist, Max, has had his license suspended multiple times for having relationships with patients. Christine and Max end up in a long-term relationship, and the series ends with them getting engaged. Like Matthew, Max does try to ignore feelings of attraction and focus on his role as a therapist, but not very successfully. He sees Christine as a patient for quite some time before telling her, basically, that he would rather date her than be her psychologist. The one time that the show features Christine in therapy, it is actually not terrible. At this point in the story arc, Max is still trying to maintain a boundary between he and Christine, and attempting to act as her psychologist. Max points out to Christine that she has a pattern of quitting things as soon as they get too hard for her. Together, they develop some homework for Christine: she is to set about finishing some tasks that she has been putting off for a long time, both at her job and at home. Even though the show does not go into depth about these things, it almost resembles something that would legitimately take place in a session. However, by the end of the episode, Max has decided that he would rather be in a relationship with Christine than treat her as a therapist.

Obviously, as a sit-com, the writing and relationships that take place are meant to be for comedic value. However, the show in general is written to be fairly realistic. It is not like some comedies that ask viewers to suspend disbelief or overlook important plot points that are not realistic. The general premise, relationships, and interactions that take place over the course of the show are meant to be realistic and be somewhat relatable for viewers. I think that this is why it is especially problematic that the show portrays psychologists so poorly. Representatives of our field show up frequently, especially in the last season, which could be a positive. In a way, it suggests that the stigma against seeing psychologists and seeking therapy is on the decline. For example, Christine’s character is one that exists in real life and could probably benefit from some therapy, and the fact that it was brought up in the show could have been a positive moment. The show could have used it as a situation where this usually "neurotic" character, who is the butt of most of the jokes on the show, is doing something good for herself and getting positive results for it. Instead, whenever psychologists were shown, they were portrayed as being almost predatory. They violated boundaries left and right, and generally took advantage of their patients. They exploited the reasons that brought their patients to therapy in the first place, such as relationship issues. The show even acknowledges the stringent boundaries that exist around these issues, and that these kinds of duel relationships are not healthy or ethically allowable, but then has the character choose to blatantly ignore them. It does not send a very positive message to those watching about the field of psychology. Personally, I am always surprised when I hear of ethically problematic situations like this arising in the real world, but they do. It is just a shame that a show on a major network starring a popular actress chose to focus so closely on these kinds of relationships and interactions in therapy.