House blatherings
Jan. 30th, 2007 10:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starzkiOh goodness, where to start?
Firstly, let me say that this was an episode that I should have liked. It's right up my alley, career-wise. In my research and in my work, my only real goal is to find out how to make life better for survivors of sexual assault. I want to find out what makes them feel better, what makes them, feel worse, and what people can do to actually help them through the healing process.
Now let me say that I actively disliked this episode until minute 56.
Yes, yes: the revelation that House was abused as a child was interesting. I also liked Cameron's patient.(Although I realized that I still have some Cameron-hating issues when the patient said he wanted her to remember him and I eagerly anticipated him permanently disfiguring her with the syringe she left next to him.)
But it was all the fucked-up advice House was given to "deal with" his patient who had been assaulted. You do NOT make a victim relive the experience through talking until they are ready, Cameron! Talking about it when they're not ready actually harms women more than it could ever help them. They don't need to do anything. They survived. That's all they needed to do. After that, it's the women, not the doctors, who dictate their treatment.
I think Foreman's advice was a little better, but still all fucked up. Some women like to hear that they aren't alone in their pain. For other women it could lead to some kind of emotional crisis where they do lose hope. I think Wilson hit it on the head where doctors, and basically anyone that survivors of sexual assault disclose to, have to be honest. Moreover, they have to be empathetic. They can't judge and they can't expect to heal emotional pain in a matter of days. I've talked to women who still sobbed to me about their experiences 30 years ago.
And lest anyone think I forgot Chase, as ineffectual as he was this episode, his floundering and indecisiveness was more real than any of the other reactions by the rest of the staff. He saw that House was probably not the best person for a victim to be talking to. I couldn't agree more. And maybe it's because Chase is the only Houseling I can stand, but I almost took his not being able to come up with a way to get through to the victim as a logical end of not having met her, himself, and not being able to follow her lead. And Chase is very cute.
Finally, I didn't like the patient/victim. I don't really buy that she wanted to talk to House because she "trusted him." I think it was the only way the writers could get House to confront certain issues and I just couldn't believe the set-up. It doesn't seem fair that she manipulated her way into getting House to draw her story out of her. Trust me, if there is anything I know about sexual assault, it is that it is also traumatizing for the people around the survivor to hear the story, to bear witness to that pain. It's not any more fair that she demanded someone reveal pain to her that it would be to demand that she share her pain.
The whole abortion debate also struck a wrong note in me. It was not House's call to aggressively urge her to terminate the pregnancy. And "rape baby?" It's par for the course for House, but still. That's just ugly. I don't think either side made decent arguments for or against an abortion for her. Women who get raped sometimes have the babies. They may not have been conceived in love, but that doesn't make the children that are born any less precious to their mothers. Also, many women abort pregnancies conceived in rape. It doesn't mean that they don't think that life is precious, or even that they don't think abortion is wrong, but they do not believe they can handle the constant reminder of the violence done to them. But this discussion gets into a whole other debate that I hate, so I'll leave this part of the discussion with the statement that reiterates all of my other points: It's up to the survivor to decide what she thinks is right for her. Everyone else should just shut up.
But the episode did redeem itself in the 56th minute. I loved House's diatribe, true as anything as has ever been said, that said that talking through it, as the victim did in the end, won't really have as much "healing power" as everyone seems to think or hope. All it basically is "is making a girl cry." Forced silence about sexual assault is bad, but so is forcing someone to talk. It may help some, it may not help others.
This episode just tap danced on all of my buttons, and I needed to rant.
Phew.
Firstly, let me say that this was an episode that I should have liked. It's right up my alley, career-wise. In my research and in my work, my only real goal is to find out how to make life better for survivors of sexual assault. I want to find out what makes them feel better, what makes them, feel worse, and what people can do to actually help them through the healing process.
Now let me say that I actively disliked this episode until minute 56.
Yes, yes: the revelation that House was abused as a child was interesting. I also liked Cameron's patient.
But it was all the fucked-up advice House was given to "deal with" his patient who had been assaulted. You do NOT make a victim relive the experience through talking until they are ready, Cameron! Talking about it when they're not ready actually harms women more than it could ever help them. They don't need to do anything. They survived. That's all they needed to do. After that, it's the women, not the doctors, who dictate their treatment.
I think Foreman's advice was a little better, but still all fucked up. Some women like to hear that they aren't alone in their pain. For other women it could lead to some kind of emotional crisis where they do lose hope. I think Wilson hit it on the head where doctors, and basically anyone that survivors of sexual assault disclose to, have to be honest. Moreover, they have to be empathetic. They can't judge and they can't expect to heal emotional pain in a matter of days. I've talked to women who still sobbed to me about their experiences 30 years ago.
And lest anyone think I forgot Chase, as ineffectual as he was this episode, his floundering and indecisiveness was more real than any of the other reactions by the rest of the staff. He saw that House was probably not the best person for a victim to be talking to. I couldn't agree more. And maybe it's because Chase is the only Houseling I can stand, but I almost took his not being able to come up with a way to get through to the victim as a logical end of not having met her, himself, and not being able to follow her lead. And Chase is very cute.
Finally, I didn't like the patient/victim. I don't really buy that she wanted to talk to House because she "trusted him." I think it was the only way the writers could get House to confront certain issues and I just couldn't believe the set-up. It doesn't seem fair that she manipulated her way into getting House to draw her story out of her. Trust me, if there is anything I know about sexual assault, it is that it is also traumatizing for the people around the survivor to hear the story, to bear witness to that pain. It's not any more fair that she demanded someone reveal pain to her that it would be to demand that she share her pain.
The whole abortion debate also struck a wrong note in me. It was not House's call to aggressively urge her to terminate the pregnancy. And "rape baby?" It's par for the course for House, but still. That's just ugly. I don't think either side made decent arguments for or against an abortion for her. Women who get raped sometimes have the babies. They may not have been conceived in love, but that doesn't make the children that are born any less precious to their mothers. Also, many women abort pregnancies conceived in rape. It doesn't mean that they don't think that life is precious, or even that they don't think abortion is wrong, but they do not believe they can handle the constant reminder of the violence done to them. But this discussion gets into a whole other debate that I hate, so I'll leave this part of the discussion with the statement that reiterates all of my other points: It's up to the survivor to decide what she thinks is right for her. Everyone else should just shut up.
But the episode did redeem itself in the 56th minute. I loved House's diatribe, true as anything as has ever been said, that said that talking through it, as the victim did in the end, won't really have as much "healing power" as everyone seems to think or hope. All it basically is "is making a girl cry." Forced silence about sexual assault is bad, but so is forcing someone to talk. It may help some, it may not help others.
This episode just tap danced on all of my buttons, and I needed to rant.
Phew.
