Trauma, Guilt, and Ethics in BeTipul and In Treatment: The Universalist Approach and (Jewish) Particularism of Psychoanalysis in Transnational Television

Authors

Michaela Wuensch, University of PotsdamFollow

Abstract

This article compares the Israeli television show BeTipul with its American adaptation, In Treatment, with regard to the subtle Jewishness of the Israeli show and its universalist conversion into a non–Jewish-American context. It asks why the adaptation was stripped of its Jewishness, and it relates this fact both to the question of psychoanalysis as a “Jewish” science as well as to Paulinian universalism. Questions after the fluidity and evasiveness of Jewish identity in general and in popular culture in particular arise, as well as the question of how psychoanalysis can be transferred to television. Both series are also analyzed from a psychoanalytical perspective as comprising a cultural unconscious.

Recommended Citation

Wuensch, Michaela (2015) "Trauma, Guilt, and Ethics in BeTipul and In Treatment: The Universalist Approach and (Jewish) Particularism of Psychoanalysis in Transnational Television," Jewish Film & New Media: Vol. 3: Iss. 2, Article 1.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/jewishfilm/vol3/iss2/1