TV: Therapy goes awry in The Shrink Next Door

According to Sun Tzu, confrontation is to be avoided.

The idea was that the cost of conflict was too terrible a price to pay but while this is a wise approach when it comes to international diplomacy the ancient Chinese philosopher must have realised his strategy doesn’t really work in everyday life.

Even Tzu must have given the kids a row when they scoffed the last of the chocolate digestives.

Will Ferrell’s character Marty Markowitz feels he needs to learn to confront people at the outset of The Shrink Next Door.

This story about a business owner and how a psychiatrist changed his life is all the more bizarre due to it being a true tale.

Markowitz shies away from challenging situations; he can’t even bear to tell his ex-girlfriend he won’t be providing the holiday to Mexico they’d talked about when they were together.

His therapist is Paul Rudd, Ike, who is on avuncular form. He promises to look after Marty and in a way he certainly does.

The flash-forward sequences bookending the first episode of The Shrink Next Door hint at things not going well.

You probably don’t have to be familiar with the podcast on which this is based to see that future-Marty burying a kaleidoscopic sculpture of a heifer suggests that, rather than conflict, he might have been better avoiding Ike.

The Shrink Next Door Apple+