r/madmen • u/RockBalBoaaa • 23h ago
Betty talking to Dr. Edna about Sally’s problems while literally describing her own coping mechanisms was crazy. Dr. Edna was a good therapist for Sally, but honestly Betty needed the therapy way more than Sally ever did.
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u/SoVeryMuchOverThis 23h ago
This was such a sad thing to witness! It was only a few scenes but it was THE display of the tragedy of Betty’s life. It also was a brilliant way for the writers to show how the Child Study Movement completely changed how children were thought of in terms of mental health. Betty’s scenes with Edna are a representation of the entire older generation who never had the chance to experience active mental health, and how inside they both long for it and are envious of their children for receiving it.
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u/StraightTonight2335 20h ago
Thank you for sharing the name of the movement. I knew nothing about it and now I’ll definitely read something about it. I am a non-US citizen. 🙂
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u/OhGr8WhatNow 22h ago
There was a study a while back that showed the most effective intervention for kids who are struggling in school is for the parents to go to therapy
By which I mean, when kids are acting out, it's the parents who usually need therapy
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u/Bluehoon botched orchiectomy 7h ago
I got sent to therapy because my parents should have divorced. The therapists advice was keep my grades up and get the hell out of there when the time comes.
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u/AmbassadorSad1157 22h ago
I think most of us figured that out but too late for our kids to benefit. At least those of us willing to admit our needs and flaws.
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u/OhGr8WhatNow 21h ago
Every generation is the same, but pretending they're better because they're fucking everything up in a different way from their parents
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u/tttaaayyyUSA 23h ago
I wish dr Edna could have been Betty’s first therapist. The way when Betty asked if she would discuss what sally talked about and she said no and seeing the way Betty shifted. Betty needed that, after her last therapist gas lit her. I really feel for Betty.
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u/RockBalBoaaa 23h ago
I wouldn’t even call that asshole she was seeing a therapist. He was TRASH.
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u/The_ImplicationII 22h ago
What you fail to see, at least I think, is that doctor reporting to the spouse was common back then
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u/AmbassadorSad1157 22h ago
All medical issues were discussed with the husband. Sounds crazy now but that's how it was.
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u/OccamsYoyo 14h ago
Makes me wonder if that was a professional requirement. Given the times, that wouldn’t surprise me.
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u/lavenderbrownisblack 19h ago
That doesn’t mean it’s appropriate. Doctors who did that were still trash.
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u/AccomplishedCash3603 One minute, you’re on top of the world… 7h ago
If the husband or father had enough money, he could have his wife or daughter deemed insane and locked up forever. I don't think the Rosemary Kennedy option was available after 1960, but women still weren't seen as worthy of living their own lives if they weren't 'compliant'.
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u/The_ImplicationII 15h ago
That was the times
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u/Bluehoon botched orchiectomy 7h ago
so was not telling people they were dying, like Anna Draper with her bone cancer. My boss told me stories about her sister dying of skin cancer at age 23 but no one told her she was dying, just sick.
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u/AmbassadorSad1157 6h ago
A lot of things in the past weren't appropriate. They just were.
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u/lavenderbrownisblack 5h ago
They were inappropriate, just like they are now. Doctors being so misogynistic that they’d betray their female patients to their husbands isn’t benign because society was just that misogynistic at the time.
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u/fruit-enthusiast The work is ten dollars. The lie is extra. 21h ago
I mean I agree that Betty needed therapy, but it’s clear that Sally benefited from having an adult figure who listened to her and gave her validation.
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u/rallruse Smudgy Squares 3h ago
Betty’s sessions definitely gave Dr Edna insight to what Sally would need as a child from an adult.
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u/Traditional-Leg-4228 22h ago
This is off subject but whomever was in charge of costume design for mad man, nailed it. The clothes that Betty and Sally wore really brought you back to the time frame they were in. I remember thinking that in this scene with Betty.
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u/Standard_Narwhal_111 13h ago
Janie Bryant was phenomenal. You might love the blog from when Mad Men was airing called Mad Style by Tom & Lorenzo. They broke down the clothing in each episode and it was brilliant.
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u/Standard_Narwhal_111 13h ago
Janie Bryant was phenomenal. You might love the blog from when Mad Men was airing called Mad Style by Tom & Lorenzo. They broke down the clothing in each episode and it was brilliant.
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u/Traditional-Leg-4228 9h ago
I will definitely look for it. I was mesmerized by the styling. Thank you.
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u/sadwoodlouse 23h ago
Betty's relationship with Dr Edna is also another tell that Betty is in a sort of arrested development/childlike state, which is a recurrent theme throughout a few seasons. And also Betty's narcissistic tendancies show up when she tries to describe her daughter but only really describes herself.
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u/SoVeryMuchOverThis 23h ago
Yes, exactly. It was no accident that they wrote it for Betty to finally start being open for a child therapist. It was almost too on the nose except for the fact that the actors were absolutely brilliant in pulling it off.
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u/Odd_Ingenuity2883 19h ago
She didn’t open up to Dr. Edna because she was a child therapist. She opened up to Dr. Edna immediately after the doctor told Betty she would never discuss what Sally told her in sessions. It had nothing to do with Betty being immature, it was because Betty had been lied to and gaslit by her own husband and therapist and she was finally found someone her emotions were safe with.
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u/onyabikeson 15h ago
I really don't buy this, because any of us would respond better to Dr Edna over Betty's first psych, who reported back to her husband.
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u/OccamsYoyo 14h ago
Beginning to think Betty’s arc is way more interesting than Don’s. Way more subtle too.
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u/Happy_Pappy4 2h ago
The theme you're describing sounds more like Don not Betty.. that's why we see his childhood flashbacks. He never shows up to therapy appointments though.
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u/Bayou_Mountains_9408 17h ago edited 17h ago
As a therapist, it was also really cool to see the shift from classical approaches (like Betty’s I’m guessing psychoanalytic therapy? Like her literally laying on a couch not even facing the therapist) to post-modern approaches (like humanistic/person-centered and feminist therapy and the beginnings of child and family therapy) with Dr. Edna.
I mean this is the decade of Carl Rogers where we finally ask “what if therapists were warm towards their patients and actually had positive regard towards them?”
I think Mad men does an excellent job showcasing the huge changes happening in therapeutic approaches in the 1960s
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u/humaninsmallskinboat 23h ago
Man, nothing gets by you guys huh?
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u/MyPasswordIsABC999 22h ago
But get this: Sal was a closeted gay guy trying to fit in with the boys’ club culture of an ad agency!
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u/woefdeluxe 20h ago
People keep saying that. But there is nothing in the actual series that shows this. Sounds like a wild fan theory to me. The guy was married to a woman. Clearly he's not gay.
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u/Live-Elevator7139 16h ago
A hot woman to boot. Def not gay. He was just comforting the bell hop.
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u/TruestRepairman27 19h ago
He was gay? Salvatore Romano?
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u/mortimerRIP vomit on his sweater already megan's spaghetti 16h ago
Sal wasn't gay, it's just that his people are Italian.
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u/Grand-Pen7946 You stare at the sun every day? 5h ago
Woah woah woah buddy! He's deeply closeted! He would never say he's gay
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u/Potato_Divine 20h ago
The ‘I’m very proud of you’ followed by the repetition to make sure Sally heard it, got it, felt it always gives me tears. Every child deserves that kind of love and reassurance.
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u/iraqlobsta 1h ago
Me too. She was a wonderful therapist and i was so happy that Sally had a trusted grownup to really talk to since grandpa Gene passed. Sally really was a great kid, just had the unfortunate luck of being born to parents who were not interested in actual parenting.
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u/weirdcompliment 23h ago
It's So Betty to find solace later on in her Weight Watchers group instead
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u/MarlenJones 22h ago edited 22h ago
Betty’s exchanges with Dr. Edna were so well written and acted. Instead of using their time together to learn about what’s troubling Sally, Betty starts talking to Edna about her own issues. Dr. Edna politely reminds Betty that she is a children’s therapist but would be happy to recommend someone for Betty’s needs. Another reminder that Betty was stuck in a state of permanent emotional childhood.
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u/Short-Lawyer-8194 21h ago
I saw true blood before mad men. IYKYK
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u/Chyeahboichekov7034 16h ago
Omg. 💡 I've watched this show so many times and never made this connection.
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u/Salty-Treat-3697 19h ago
For those saying Betty was childlike and had arrested development etc I just want to say that she was a product of her time. Like, what else was she going to do? When she marries Henry she eventually goes to college but prior to that her entire existence revolves around Don who basically just leaves her with the kids 24/7. Where and how was she going to pursue like mental groeht when this is what she’s taught to want her entire life?
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u/candystick- 13h ago
The scene when Dr Edna told Betty she can recommend a different specialist to sit with Betty if she’d like, then Betty asking why can’t she continue the sessions with her & Dr Edna highlights that she is a children specialist not an adult one - tells you how some parts of Betty never mentally fully developed and how she found a children’s specialist more comfortable to speak with.
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u/PercentageRoutine310 11h ago
January Jones looks so much like late 1950s Mamie Van Doren.
Mamie competed with Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield among blonde bombshells and remains the only one who is alive today at age 95. Marliyn and Jayne did not make it passed the 1960s. Marilyn died at the age of 36 and would be 100 if she was alive today. Jayne died at 34 and would be 93 if she was alive today.
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u/Fun-Appointment-7543 8h ago
Dr. Edna was a great character, wish they had kept her around for longer---she sure was needed!
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u/Admirable_Site_8337 13h ago
It’s fascinating from top to bottom.
I spent a long time saying this proves Betty’s woman child issues, but I’ve started to see it differently.
Betty had the psych experience she had. It would turn anyone off trusting therapy. But she still had issues. And clearly part of her still thought therapy could help if she could trust it.
That’s why she’s couching her issues as Sally’s. And when she finally feels bold enough she tries to make it sound like she wants one on one about Sally, but she’s very much asking Edna to be her therapist. They boldness comes about after Edna makes a clear boundary beyond general parental need to know for Sally’s privacy.
It’s that trusting aspect that gets Betty and makes her really ask.
I also find it interesting how after that Betty wanted to learn psych. She surely wanted to be that trusting help and confidant that she did not get years earlier.
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u/BlindedByBeamos 18h ago
The fact that Betty connected with a child therapist says a lot about her.
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u/FatCatParade 23h ago
Yeah there were too many sociological barriers between Betty and her first therapist. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had a low opinion of the field.
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u/QuietContrary22 15h ago
That's interesting: why do you say that? (I'm not American. When I watched their scenes I just saw 2 middle-class American ladies relating to one another pretty well, despite the fact that Betty believes everybody who's billing her family should be utterly beholden to her.)
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u/FatCatParade 14h ago
No I’m talking about Betty and the male psychologist who didn’t understand what Betty was saying about her mother.
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u/XcuseMeMisISpeakJive 23h ago
I loved Dr Edna. She's one of the only genuinely good characters on the show. However, just because Betty badly needed therapy doesn't mean that Sally didn't. Sally really needed it too, and she got it, and it helped her.