In Treatment: Sophie's Masquerade

As a self-professed television buff and a lover of all things psych, I am not quite sure how HBO's In Treatment managed to escape my notice for as long as it did. On a superficial level alone, the show is beyond compelling. The writing and acting are so expertly executed that it is the ideal choice for any drama-lover's next marathon. But this show has so much more going for it than mere suspense. It is intelligent and informed and it challenges the viewer to follow along without giving them all of the answers. Through Paul, a middle-aged psychologist, we become acquainted with several of his dynamic patients. One of the most engaging of these characters is a fifteen-year-old girl named Sophie (played by the amazing Mia Wasikowska) who is forced to visit him after an "accident" in which she was hit by a car. What we gleam from her interactions with Paul, from what she says and what she doesn't say, make up the intriguing narrative of her story, one riddled with abuse and neglect. In my third year of university, I was challenged to read Sophie through the psychoanalytic perspective of Joan Riviere, and was shocked at how well Sophie's behaviour adhered to psychoanalytic theory and how nuanced Wasikowska's performance had to be to communicate this so subtly. (Confession: I wasn't challenged to do this. I found this more interesting than the actual assignment and submitted this paper instead).

In Womanliness as Masquerade, Joan Riviere posits an understanding of gender which, if flawed, at least provides readers with an alternative template for the psychological development of women and which, she feels, may account for some variation among adult women. Having just been introduced to the character of Sophie, I am struck by the way that her experience- with her parents, peers, coach and sport- can be read as an expression of the anxiety which Riviere describes as so integral to the understanding of gender and gender relations.

If Sophie can be understood as assuming a mask of womanliness, as Riviere would suggest, then the behaviour she has exhibited can be explained within this paradigm. To this end, Sophie’s choice of sport is very compelling as it is one that is largely considered to be feminine and for which the uniform famously emphasizes a feminine physique. Even when delving into the world of sports, one that can be thought of as predominantly masculine, Sophie is hyper- feminized. However, it is a sport nonetheless and one in which she happens to excel and dominate over her competition. Much like Riviere’s case study, Sophie’s dominance in a male dominated sphere represents a symbolic castration of her father for which she fears retribution. In this light, both the choice of an overtly feminine sport and the suggested relationship between herself and Cy can be seen as Sophie making amends for this castration much the way that Riviere’s patient offered her sexuality to father- figures in search of reassurance and to quell any vengeful backlash. Cy is thus a source of “restitution of something lost”, a means of obtaining recognition and the approval that is entangled in that, from her father figure. This is almost logical as he is her coach, a figure of authority that is intended to guide her and judge her progress. These make up Sophie’s mask of womanliness, from which she seeks protection as she hazards an exploration of the masculine sphere.

As Riviere predicts Sophie identifies with her father and, to curve her mother’s rage at Sophie’s triumph over herself, Sophie uses this masculine identification in service of her mother. In In Treatment, Sophie identifies largely with her father’s independence and distance, which is in turn evidenced by Sophie’s refusal to rely on her mother and the coldness with which she regards her mother. However, this independence, intended as a kindness towards her defeated mother is never enough and rather fuels tensions between the two. The stress that this feigned independence puts on Sophie is evident in Episode 8. When Sophie claims that asking her mother for help on the writing assignment resulted in a fight, she was not far from the truth. In actuality, asking for help from her mother represented an internal conflict which she then projected on to reality. Her telling her mother to “never mind” when she was in fact willing to help demonstrates Sophie’s struggle to be show dependence, one that is evident throughout the show thanks to the restricting arm casts.

Also similar to Riviere’s patient, Sophie exhibits feelings of rivalry towards other women which extend past healthy competition in sports. Especially in Episode 8 there is such emphasis on competition, including her claim that she would not go visit Shirley, her fiercest competitor, if she had been hit by a car. This contempt for other women is not only extreme but gendered as when she rails out against her fellow gymnasts referring to them as “sluts” or when she suggests that Cy’s wife was less than the ideal mother for leaving the state for an extended period of time.

Finally, Riviere suggested that the woman might feel compelled to present her masculine qualities as a joke as a means of protecting herself from retribution from male peers. While Sophie has yet to make a joke of her athletic success, she hedges in her initial explanation of her talent saying, “I’m kind of an Olympic hopeful”. This need to belittle her own accomplishments in her discussion with Paul, a strange male, can be evidence of her anxiety of being seen as a threat to men and her need to retreat behind a veil of passivity and humility which are the hallmarks of “womanliness”.

As of yet, the timeline of Sophie’s accident and her relationship with Cy remains unclear. If the return of Cy’s ‘flighty’ wife coincided with the accident the implications for Sophie’s gender development, and her understanding of that development are interesting. If Cy ended their sexual relationship, which to Sophie represented the approval and affection of her father, Sophie would be left without any means of subverting her anxiety of retribution. Thus the accident can be read as Sophie’s desperation to alleviate her own anxiety through self-destruction, or at the very least through the incapacity to compete, to win, to dominate. In her post-accident life, without the sport that labeled her a threat and consequently threatened her, Sophie must navigate the boundaries that exist between herself and the men in her life, thus her testing Paul, the new father figure she hopes will not break the rules.

#HBO #InTreatment #Sophie #Riviere #psychoanalysis #psych #TV