Viceland’s new show pairs rappers and rockers with a shrink for sometimes electrifying, sometimes uncomfortable results.
The cultural image of the tortured musician is surely part of the reason Viceland’s new show The Therapist exists. In it, the Los Angeles therapist Siri Sat Nam Singh sits one-on-one with musicians for 22-minute episodes consisting almost entirely of conversation, interspersed with only brief bits of news footage or music videos. The result is an odd and oddly compelling entry into the dubious emerging genre of televised therapy. Watching, you’re reminded that no person—troubled recording artist or otherwise—is just an archetype. But you’re also reminded of the awkwardness and possible payoff of therapy that is, on some level, trying to help individuals by placing their troubles into archetypes.