In Treatment

Gabriel Byrne portrays Paul Weston, a charming, relentless psychologist, who is seeking his own peaceful existence, free of self-doubt and ambivalence. Paul is a graduate of Georgetown University, where he earned his undergraduate degree, Columbia University, where he earned a master's degree and The New School, where he received his PhD (however, there is a scene in season one in which two diplomas from the University of Pennsylvania are displayed near the door to Paul's office). In summer 1988, he moved to Maryland, where he worked at the Washington–Baltimore Psychoanalytic Institute and later established his private practice in Baltimore.

Dianne Wiest portrays psychotherapist Gina Toll, Paul Weston's former mentor and clinical supervisor whom Paul avoided for nine years after an argument over reservations expressed by Gina in a letter of recommendation on Paul's behalf. She acts as a sounding board for Paul's doubts about his own motives and abilities.

Therapy patient Laura, professes her love for Paul, which causes their relationship to grow more complex and difficult to control. Laura's personal issues include being seduced by a much older man when she was a teenager. She begins an unsatisfying sexual relationship with Alex, another of Paul’s patients. Paul reflects on his own feelings for her and believes that he is in love with her, however sessions with Gina fail to resolve his inner conflict over his desire and professional responsibility. Midway through the season, Laura ends her therapy with Paul after he continues to reject her advances. Paul and Laura encounter each other at Alex's funeral, and later Paul decides pursue Laura at the risk of destroying his marriage, but a panic attack prevents him from going through with it.

Alex, a fighter pilot who finds it impossible to express his internal struggles, meets Laura and has a brief affair with her. Paul tries to get Alex to break through to his reasons for running himself to exhaustion and examine his feelings about killing Iraqi schoolchildren during a sanctioned mission. Alex drifts into instability, eventually deciding to end his therapy, and returns to the military just as Paul begins to make progress with Alex's repressed insecurities. Alex is killed during a training exercise, and although his death is ruled an accident, some indications suggest that Alex's death may have been a suicidal reaction caused by the trauma of therapeutic reflection.

Sophie's ambivalence to life is elicited and broken down by Paul, who is able to successfully examine her underage sexual relationship with her much-older gymnastics coach Cy and its effects on her, in addition to her conflicted feelings about her divorced parents and her father's distance from her. Eventually, Sophie benefits greatly from her therapy with Paul and begins to repair her relationship with her parents. At the end of the season, Sophie leaves Baltimore to pursue further gymnastic training in Denver.

Jake and Amy's debate regarding whether or not she should have an abortion is just the prologue to an extremely volatile, dysfunctional relationship. During their second therapy session, Amy experiences a miscarriage, but the couple returns to therapy to work on their issues. Amy's inability to hold emotional connection leads her to have an affair with her boss, a man she finds "gross" but uses as a buffer against her husband. Jake and Amy each have an individual sessions, and finally and sadly decide to end their tumultuous marriage and share custody of their son. Jake believes that the therapy was helpful, but Amy thinks it hurt their marriage.

Throughout the season, Gina and Paul confront each other over issues regarding their shared history and opposing views, but by the finale Paul realizes he needs her input and agrees to continue therapy.

The first season consists of 43 episodes, with each episode airing on their allotted day of the week, Monday to Friday.[6] The episodes were spread over nine weeks for most of the characters, except in the final week, which did not have Monday or Tuesday night installments.

Paul, now divorced and quite lonely, has relocated to Brooklyn, and uses the living room of his small refurbished walk-up brownstone for patient visits. He is served with a malpractice lawsuit from Alex's father in the first episode,[7][8] and becomes preoccupied with the consequences.

Alex Sr. sues Paul for negligence, charging him with failing to prevent the death of his son Alex Jr., a former patient who voluntarily discontinued therapy and was killed in a plane crash that was either an accident or suicide. Alex, Sr. and his lawyers contend that Paul's professional responsibility was to contact the military and report Alex, Jr. unfit for duty. (from season 1). Alex Sr. later meets with Paul and makes a loaded offer: if Paul writes a letter taking blame for Alex Jr.'s death, he will drop the lawsuit against him, satisfied to have his belief that Paul is 100% at fault confirmed.

Paul's personal neurotic and self-aggrandizing behavior was a significant theme throughout the series.[9][10] He identified with all of his patients' issues and interpersonal conflicts on some level. Ironically, he was their composite personality, except he was intended to be the resolution expert. His self-doubt and feelings of personal inadequacy revealed over the seven weeks made him appear even more vulnerable than those he was treating. As the final episode drew to a close, Paul pulled the plug on his own desire for treatment, with the same ambivalence his patients had exhibited. Was it really making a difference? Alex's father has a meeting where he makes this offer: he will drop his lawsuit if Paul will write him a letter taking 100% of the blame for Alex's death. Paul considers this offer but later concurs with Gina's advice and tells Alex Sr. his offer is rejected. The lawsuit was dismissed as frivolous, and his angst involving his professional competency was alleviated, at least temporarily.[11][12]

The final symbolic message Paul delivered to his audience by that decision was, there are times in one's life when therapy is valuable for a person to become more grounded in reality. However, more often than not, therapy alone only serves as a road map to find a patient's way in the world. Paul realizes he "needs to stop analyzing his life and needs to start living it". Given enough time and patience, and by accepting that there are past events that cannot be controlled or changed, everything in life tends to work out by itself and not by recreation or reparation of former deeds.[11][12]

The season had seven episodes for each character. The "Monday" and "Tuesday" sessions aired back-to-back on Sundays, while the remaining three ran on Mondays. HBO repeated the episodes in sequence, several times each week. The season's executive producer was Warren Leight, who previously worked on Law and Order: Criminal Intent.[2]

The third season is the first series not based on the original Israeli series "Be Tipul", which ran for only two seasons. The format is similar, each week, a series of patients visit psychotherapist Paul Weston in half-hour episodes, while in the last, Paul visits his own therapist who is Adele Brouse rather than Gina Toll who appeared in the first two seasons.

Also, there are only three patients this time around, and their stories offer a similar depth to the previous seasons. Paul still lives in Cobble Hill in Brooklyn though he does now have a young girlfriend, Wendy.

On Mondays, he meets with Sunil, a widower transported to New York from Calcutta following the death of his wife, to live with his son, his son’s wife and their two young children.

Tuesday’s patient is Frances, a self-described successful actress who has returned to the stage, but has difficulty remembering her lines. She’s also coping with a dying sister, a broken marriage and a scornful teenage daughter.

On Wednesdays Paul sees Jesse, a high school student who believes his adopted parents hate him because he is gay though he is also bitter, abusive and manipulative.

Paul eventually re-enters therapy with the young psychoanalyst Adele Brouse, initially seeking a prescription for sleep medication, but she accurately perceives that lack of sleep is not his real problem.

The show remained set in Paul's apartment in Brooklyn, New York, the same location of his office in season 2. Unlike its first two seasons, the third season contained only four episodes per week. The show aired on Mondays and Tuesdays and, like season 2, had seven weeks of sessions.

Following the final episode of the second season, Leight said in an interview that a third season remained a possibility, but pointed out that the show had been exhausting for everyone involved and also somewhat less than a "breakout hit" for HBO.[13] However, on October 23, 2009, HBO announced that it had picked up In Treatment for a third season. Production began in early 2010 for a premiere in late October.[14]

On March 30, 2011, HBO said In Treatment would not continue in its existing form but the network was talking with the show's producers about possibly continuing in a different format.[15][16] The final result was the ending of the series, with the third season being the last.