Tuesday, November 18, 2003
The Strong, Silent Type: Psychoanalysis in The Sopranos
Originally published in Metro 138, 2003.
Psychoanalysis is big in The Sopranos. The relationship between Tony and his psychiatrist Dr Jennifer Melfi has always been a key focus of the show, but now, in the fourth series, it seems everyone has a therapist: Tony’s sister Janice, his children, Meadow and Anthony Jr, even Dr Melfi herself is seeing someone. Two people, actually. Creator David Chase, we are told, was a ‘devotee of Freud in high school’, but does his show subscribe to Freudian ideas of analysis? What does The Sopranos think of psychoanalysis as a process? And is all this therapy actually doing anyone any good?
'Sooner or later you’re going to get beyond psychotherapy, with its cheesy moral relativism. You’re going to get to good and evil. And he’s evil.' (‘The Legend of Tennessee Moltisanti’/#1008).
For Dr Jennifer Melfi’s ex-husband Richard LaPenna – an active member of the Italian-American anti-defamation league – Tony Soprano belongs in realm of moral judgment beyond that of psychoanalysis. Richard’s comment is a contemporary manifestation of the idea, popular in Freud’s time, that psychoanalysis is a luxury for wealthy Viennese housewives with little else to occupy their lives, not for ‘sociopaths’ like Tony. From the very beginning of The Sopranos, we were presented with a character seemingly beyond redemption and the reaches of psychoanalysis. So is psychoanalysis up to Tony Soprano?
Tony’s progress is certainly not helped by the fact that he is violently resistant to the analytic process: ‘it’s impossible for me to talk to a psychiatrist’ (‘The Sopranos’/#1001). He walks out on numerous sessions, and abuses and threatens Dr Melfi, on one occasion physically, and on another by overturning her coffee table. Tony has little or no knowledge of psychoanalytic theory, and has no idea what to expect, regardless of what he might think: ‘I had a semester and a half of college. So, I understand Freud. I understand therapy as a concept’ (‘The Sopranos’/#1001). He knows of Freud’s Oedipus theory, yet refuses to engage with it: ‘that crap about Freud and every boy wanting to have sex with his mother, that’s not gonna fly here’ (‘Pax Soprana’/#1006). And when Dr Melfi mentions castration anxiety: ‘hey, my mother never went after my basket’ (‘I Dream of Jeannie Cusamano/#1013). His flippant responses conceal a resistance towards Freudian analytic theory that is matched only by his antagonism towards psychoanalytic practice:
'Nowadays, everybody’s gotta go to shrinks, and counsellors, and go on Sally Jessy Raphael and talk about their problems. Whatever happened to Gary Cooper, the strong, silent type. That was an American.' (‘The Sopranos’/#1001. The theme of Gary Cooper as the ‘strong, silent type’ reappears in the fourth series in ‘The Weight’/#4004).
Tony’s line of work – and I’m not talking about waste management here – also makes it difficult for him to undergo analysis. The Mob of The Sopranos frowns upon its members, particularly underbosses like Tony, from discussing ‘the business’ with anyone outside it, and it is made clear early on that Tony’s life will be in danger if it gets out that he is seeing a psychiatrist. When his situation worsens towards the end of the first series, he is forced to relocate Dr Melfi so that she does not become a target, and Tony himself narrowly survives an assassination attempt. So far, things are not looking good for Freudian analytic theory.
But despite Tony’s negative attitude to psychoanalysis, he actually makes some progress, testament to Freud’s assertion that the patient’s external attitude to treatment makes little difference. His anxiety attacks occur less frequently, and his exposure to treatment means that he can use the psychoanalytic theory he has learned to see issues with friends and family from a new, different perspective. At one point his nephew Christopher is at a particularly low ebb, feeling that his life lacks meaning and direction: ‘I got no identity! (‘The Legend of Tennessee Moltisanti’/#1008). Tony is aware of his own psychological problems, and this enables him to identify Christopher’s fragile state from signals such as his moroseness and the declining quality of his work: ‘maybe you’re … depressed. Now, he cares enough to make sure that suicide is not on Christopher’s mind. Yet despite these moments, Tony’s progress is slow, and at times it looks as if his analysis is going nowhere.
Cleverly, just as this doubt begins to creep in, The Sopranos presents us with a contrast: Dr Melfi suggests that Carmela join her and Tony for a session to address marital problems. Instantly the joint session begins, Carmela is resistant and hostile, interpreting Dr Melfi’s questions as attempts to place the blame for the Sopranos’ failing marriage on her. Tony tries to calm her down, but Carmela storms out just like Tony has done so many times, believing that all Tony and Dr Melfi talk about is what a demon she must be. (This is a common response in The Sopranos. When other characters, for example Tony’s mother, Livia, and his Uncle Junior, first hear about Tony’s analysis, their first concern is that he is talking about them.)
In a role reversal of sorts, it is Tony who tries desperately to talk Carmela back into the session. The shared analysis fails, but the scene serves to show just how far Tony has progressed in his acceptance of analytic theory and practice. Now, he listens to the theoretical models that Dr Melfi applies to his behaviour, such as when she evokes Jungian ideas of the anima and the shadow as she urges Tony to consider why he is attracted to dangerous women. He may not understand their theoretical underpinnings, but he is receptive to her analyses. For someone who couldn’t talk to a psychiatrist, he has made considerable progress, and The Sopranos indicates that it subscribes to the Freudian notion that resistance is no barrier to effective treatment.
In a conscious nod to Freud, the phenomenon of transference love arises during the first series, and Dr Melfi deals with it like a devoted Freudian. When Tony declares his love for her, and tries to kiss her, she does exactly what Freud says to do: she recognises that his love is ‘induced by the analytic situation’ and, ending the session, tells Tony that his feelings are a ‘byproduct of progress’. However, she heeds Freud’s warning against dismissing the patient altogether, and analyses Tony’s emotions so that he can better understand himself: ‘you’ve made me all the things you feel are missing in your wife, and in your mother’ (‘Pax Soprana’/#1006). Of course, Tony resists this construction of his feelings – ‘I can’t just turn off my feelings because you tell me it’s a byproduct of therapy’ – but, as Freud advised, Dr Melfi’s analysis leads Tony to recognise that his feelings reveal shortcomings in his relationships with his wife and mother.
‘An Italian male seeing a shrink? Let me guess; mother issues’ (‘The Legend of Tennessee Moltisanti’/#1008). Again, it is Dr Melfi’s ex-husband over-simplifying the analytic process. Yet despite Tony’s negative attitude, he actually progresses. In The Sopranos, psychoanalysis, to varying degrees, works. Of course there are hiccups: Tony’s anxiety attacks return from time to time, though never with the same frequency, and he continues to battle inner demons arising from conflicts between his two ‘families’ and the eternal struggle between good and evil. But when we compare Tony today with the Tony of the first episode, we see that little by little, he’s getting there.