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amelia-grant-md · 3 years

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If you were to re-do the scene with Bucky and his therapist but with Amelia instead, how would the scene go?

Oohh that is an interesting question! (although I also kind of have to sort through what I, me, Josie, would do (as someone who really likes the fictional character Bucky and his backstory and also writing) vs. what Amelia would do (as a fictional therapist invented by a writer who knows fuck-all about therapy). Bc Amelia is very different to the therapist-character both as a) a therapist and b) a person. And that’s less about “what makes a good therapist” but “how does Amelia deal with things and what does she consider good therapy.”

For me, personally, I think what really bothers me the most about those therapy scenes in Falcon and Winter Soldier and really the way Bucky is being treated: This therapy is forced on him in the first place. He doesn’t want to be there. And this therapist often treats him in a very passive-aggressive way, especially in the first therapy scene. (I especially hated the thing with the notebook considering that Bucky and doctors with notebooks...yeah, they have a history).

And I know that a very common fandom reaction to his therapy scenes was that it is nice for Bucky that he is in a position where he can choose to push back, to refuse stuff - something he couldn’t do in ages. But personally, I don’t think putting him in a conflict position is the best way to get him to open up. I mean, it’s nice to teach him to push back (which is actually something we know he already can do bc we often see him do it when interacting for example with Sam and the entire idea of Bucky being some soft trembling flower is kind of a fandom-take) but I think the guy has bigger issues.

Now, talking specifically about Amelia and the kind of character I see her as:

One thing that I try to make Amelia do a lot is that she tries not to push people. She has a stubborn streak when it comes to how she perceives herself, but she doesn’t push that on others. That is for example why she told Val and Jacopo that they could leave any time if they needed to take a break or why she let Val get coffee when it was obviously her way of stalling - bc she could tell that Val was uncomfortable and didn’t want to add to that by saying: “Hey sit your ass down and talk now.” So it’s easier to let Val get her additional three minutes of getting coffee and then having her sit down for good.

It’s also why when she was invited to their house for the first time to check whether this is a good place for Jacopo, one of the first things she told Val was that she has no intention to take Jacopo away and that she wouldn’t be angry if she found something amiss (it’s too long ago for to me to remember what exactly she said but they had a brief conversation of that sort) - because she knew that putting additional stress on Jacopo’s parents would just give them reasons to hide stuff from her and not to tell her the truth which in turn would prevent her from helping Jacopo, so instead she wanted to give them the liberty to be honest without consequences and if she found something wrong, she could give them actual advice.

Or that’s why she never told Jacopo something along the lines: “stop cutting!” or “you shouldn’t have run from home!” - or for example when Jacopo told her that he considers stealing to show Jlo that stealing is bad, she doesn’t say “you shouldn’t do that” or “stealing is bad” or “that’s a dumb idea” or even “Wow you would be a thief and I hate thieves”, but just points out that he might get in trouble - not indicating any personal feelings on the matter. Because if she did that and he stole something, he might not tell her. So she just reminds him of the consequences.

When it comes to Bucky, I think one of the biggest differences is the apologising thing. I don’t think Amelia is averse to advising a person to apologise if a person genuinely feels bad and she thinks this might help them feel better, but she’s also someone who focussed her career on dealing with abused children (who tend to blame themselves for things they are not responsible for). And ironically, Bucky is also not responsible for the things he did when he was the Winter Soldier.

Now, I’m not a therapist and I don’t know whether apologising would maybe really help a person like Bucky feel better or not (it might! I’m not saying it wouldn’t!) - but just ignoring how therapy really works in the real world and just looking at characters and how fictional Amelia regards fictional psychology; I don’t think she would make him apologise unless he would insist on doing that. In which case, again, she would be very non-judgy and more matter-of-factly and point out the pros and cons for his mental health (and the mental health of the people he apologises to) and generally the advantages and disadvantages of this approach. And if he decided to do it, she would very frequently go over the results with him in a neutral way.

Obviously, we have to keep in mind that she was developed as a therapist for Jacopo so a big thing for her is that she’s always very: “Hey, this is not your fault.” and “You are not (stupid/slow/untalented)”. And I feel like for her, setting Bucky up to make apologies would be setting him up to internalise that he has something to apologise for - when really, he is the victim. It would be like...if someone grabbed your arm, made you slap someone, gaslit you into believing you hit that person and when you talked to someone about this, they would tell you: “Well, apologise to the person you slapped, and you will feel better!” - Again, I don’t know whether this would help a real-world trauma patient, but in terms of fictional psychologists, I don’t think Amelia would make him do that. Instead, she would focus on sorting through his trauma with him, teaching him coping strategies with stuff like flashbacks, nightmares, and other tendencies. And use that as markers of progress, not some third persons reaction to an apology by the guy who killed someone they loved. (which is another thing: Consent. I will say some more about this later but I think for her, consent is a big deal and involving those victims in Bucky’s therapy would be something she would really want do some check-ups on bc she cannot put her patient’s well-being over that of stranger’s.)

Another thing is the scene where the therapist takes Bucky’s phone, looks through his calls and then tells him it’s “sad” how few people he spoke to. That’s also something Amelia would never do - she has a very “glass is half-full”, “you tried your best!” approach. Also, again, she wouldn’t go through his stuff without consent and if she found out how many people he called, she would either not comment or she would at least find something praise-worthy about it.

In my own pedagogy studies, one very interesting thing my psychology lecturer always stressed is that any positive or negative attention from a person in authority* is automatically reinforcement vs. punishment. You know that feeling when your parents say: “Ooohh look, you left your room, huh? How nice of you to show your face for once!!!” - that is negative attention bc it’s indirectly saying: “Well you are never here you asshole.” (even if it’s not meant that way). And the thing our lecturer really broke down for us about punishment vs. reinforcement is that reinforcement is the more well-directed force – it’s like a laser while punishment is like a leaf-blower:

- If you tell a student who draws a lot in class: “Peter, stop drawing and focus!” (negative attention-> punishment) you can at best have one result: That the thing he won’t do is draw. You have no idea what he’s going to do instead. He might start throwing things for all you know

- But if you actually have positive reinforcement for Peter when he’s not drawing and you find a way to praise him for doing his work without the “ooh you left your room!”-undertone, you are actually reinforcing the positive attention he gets for doing his work and this is the one thing you are encouraging here. Even if you just say: “Hey, you really put a lot of effort into this and I can see your progress, good job” – already positive attention.

*(and yeah, I’m kinda projecting that from a teacher over to a therapist (bc again, not a therapist), but then, it’s also a court-mandated therapist we are talking about here and Bucky can get arrested for not seeing her - which is something that gives her a lot of power over a former POW whose captors infiltrated military and law enforcement)

And yeah, since this is...one of the few things I know, this is something that informs the way Amelia treats people (which is why she brings muffins to an uncomfortable appointment -> sugar makes people happy. So if someone is feeling down, they get a muffin).

Going through someone’s phone and telling them it’s sad that they called so little people is negative attention and therefore punishment. What she’s encouraging here is that the next time, Bucky simply might not bring his phone and lie about his social life (same as he already lies about his nightmares).

Also, again on the subject of consent: There is the question of adding someone else to a session. It was very important to Amelia to talk with Val before this entire thing was set up bc a) she wanted her explicit consent to this session and b) to make sure that Val knew about this and this was not something Jacopo had decided to spring on her to get his way.

Bucky’s therapist just pulls Sam into the session, putting him a very awkward position without his consent.

So yeah, how would I set up such a scene....(cough aka answering your actual question cough)

Now, ignoring for a moment how I would actively write such a scene from an stylistic point of view but just focussing on how I would picture Amelia setting up such a session/therapy in general:

I think the first thing would be that Amelia would be very open about this being a court-mandated therapy and acknowledging that Bucky does not want to be there. Personally, considering her own stance on consent, I’m already in the doubts here whether she would accept a court-mandated patient but then, I think she might if she was really optimistic about being able to help that person and since she’s a trauma specialist (although for children and young adults) she might give it a shot.

On the other hand, just the way she sees her practice, I don’t think she would be able to treat someone who doesn’t want to be treated in a way that they don’t feel comfortable with. She’s really not a “we have to dig into the things you don’t feel comfortable with!”- therapist and very “I will nudge and encourage them to bring forward what they want to.” (on that matter: She also didn’t really expect Val to put her survivor’s guilt all out in the open. But just to say which incidents lead to Jacopo running away from home from her perspective)

So, I can very well see her say to Bucky: “Hey, I know you don’t want to be here, I’m not going to force this on you, so let’s just have a tea and some croissants and I will non-bindingly talk a little about trauma management strategies and different places any person with trauma can turn to in an emergency and btw here is how you can contact me at any time.” That would mostly be an excuse to say a) yes, court-people, therapy has happened here are records on what we talked about and b) a way of hiding some real attempts to get him to talk. She might even pick fairly neutral topics like “do you know that new bakery downtown” (to gauge whether he goes out and explores or stays at home and shuts off) or planned vacations (does he plan ahead/does he have things he wishes to do or see and does he make efforts to do them?) or something in the hopes that he responds and she can gently nudge that conversation to more personal subjects.

Now, we have to keep in mind that Bucky is kind of…a dangerous person. Even if he’s not violent, he has super-powers, can be brainwashed and has PTSD a mile-wide which can make people irritable and even cause violent flashbacks. I think one priority for her would be to assess that danger potential – both to himself and to others. So, while she tries nudging at those subjects, I think central themes would be:

a) His emotional state (is he an angry person? How does he talk about his past? How does he talk about other people in general? How does he interact with his (21st century) environment? Also, he grew up 100 years ago, so she might actually try to get a read on how his thoughts and feelings on stuff like race, gender, sexuality – bc a lot of stuff happened since then and even someone with the most progressive ideas and intentions from the 1930s might at worst be out of touch with the 2020s and at best actually…mean well but say or do something that is highly inappropriate in the 21st century and put himself an awkward position in every day life, so I think she would try to get a read on that and give him pointers. (especially since she herself is a woman of colour with a phd working in the medical field (something that wasn’t a thing when he grew up) and treating a white man who got iced in the 1940s and was kept by actual Nazis for 70 years is probably something she would have some expectations and concerns about. I think generally, she would just want to observe how he interacts with her, considering that this is an uncomfortable situation for him and if she wants to know whether the Winter Soldier is dangerous – might just see how this legendary mystery killer reacts to being put in the room with a court-mandated personality-prodder and being served pastries. Now, we might be reading this from a position where we know Bucky and know he’s mostly a very decent guy – but Amelia doesn’t know that going in and while I picture her as a very encouraging and positive person, I also think as a professional, she would try to prepare herself for some fucked-up shit.)

b) His living situation (the thing where he sleeps on the floor is actually something a lot of former POWs and people who were imprisoned do so I imagine this is exactly one of the things she would be on the look-out for: Does he have a place to stay? Does he have food? Does he have someone who checks up on him? Does he take care of himself? – and depending on that outcome, she might encourage the efforts he already makes and offer help and give tips, mostly neutral ones at first like easy recipes that don’t require a lot of effort? Or if it’s really going badly, I think she would actually offer him to check up on him, much in the same way that she checked up on Jacopo’s home, as: “hey, this won’t have negative consequences for you, you don’t even have to let me in, I just want to see you alive once a week and maybe drop off some leftovers from my kitchen.” Now, this is something I know therapists should not be doing bc it blurs the line between private and professional life, but I think it’s definitely something Amelia is very accommodating about (I mean, she cAnoNicalLy lets her patients call her any time of the day if they have a problem and if Jacopo had called her that he was running from home, she would probably even have let him stay at her place until she had figured something out. I think she’s a person who really puts her patients first, even at the expense of her privacy…and well-being)

c) His danger potential (when he talks to her, does he mention feeling aggression? Does he disassociate? Does he have flashbacks and what are they about and when does he have them? Does he slip into that brainwashed personality?)

I think gauging those things mixed with providing help to acute difficulties Bucky shares with her would be her first priorities.

Now this can go two ways: Either he completely refuses to participate. In which case I imagine she would accurately and dutifully record that and either the therapy gets extended and she keeps going the way she does until he changes – or the court says: Well, we tried, therapy over, good luck Bucky – in which case she would probably give him her number and ways to contact her, maybe a self-help book and tell him her door is always open. Or if he does participate, I think she would slowly shift from gauging problems and providing direct solutions to immediate problems (“You don’t have the mental energy to cook? – Here are some quick recipes and these are my favourite pizza places in the area”) to long-term strategies and even medication plans, however they might look like for Bucky.

I think she would encourage him to develop a healthy social life same as his canon therapist and encourage him to seek out contacts but again, she definitely wouldn’t call it “sad” that the brainwashed ex-POW born in the 1910s has difficulties finding people to relate to but try to encourage the relationships she has (she would definitely give some positive feedback about Sam trying to reach out to Bucky, as he apparently did because a) he’s an Avenger and knows some of that superhero shit Bucky is dealing with and b) he also has experience supporting people dealing with trauma and c) he knew Steve, one of the biggest anchors in Bucky’s life.)

I also, think she would provide some medical help for the nightmares and teach some strategies for dealing with those.

And yeah, a lot of those factors depend on their effectiveness and I think it would be somewhat trial and error because Bucky’s situation is…pretty unique and not her field of speciality, but just in short, I think one of the central themes with Amelia as his therapist would be that she would try to get him to want to participate and a transition from a) getting a read on his danger potential and b) offering immediate help to immediate problems to offering long-term strategies and perspectives to deal with shit.

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