CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

One therapist’s empathy threatens to consume his life. Another is so narcissistic she holds sessions while being fitted for her wedding dress. A third manages to help her patients but is in such personal disarray she does not know which colleague fathered her child.

As if in answer to the country’s economic woes and general anxiety, there are suddenly an awful lot of shrinks on TV. Varying from the sublime to the ridiculous, these doctors create a microcosm of television’s, and popular culture’s, evolving relationship with psychoanalysis.

At opposite ends of the spectrum are HBO’s “In Treatment,” in which Dr. Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne) and his therapist Gina (Dianne Wiest) provide aspirational therapy, and Starz’s “Head Case,” which plays more like “What About Bob?” meets “Entourage.” Matching egos with the likes of Kevin Nealon, Tori Spelling and Jeff Goldberg, Alexandra Wentworth’s Dr. Elizabeth Goode practices something closer to psycholo-me.

In between are the Team Players, including Dr. Violet Turner (Amy Brenneman) on “Private Practice” (she of the DNA-test aversion) and Dr. Lance Sweets (John Francis Daley) on “Bones.” Nor should we overlook the Special Guest Star Therapists, such as “MASH’s” Dr. Sidney Freedman (Allan Arbus), one of the originals, and newcomers like “Grey’s Anatomy’s” Dr. Katharine Wyatt (Amy Madigan) and “Bones’ ” Dr. Gordon Wyatt (Stephen Fry).

It’s a strange proliferation considering how culturally passe therapy has become. Although there were a few earlier attempts before “The Bob Newhart” Show” premiered in 1972 (“The Psychiatrist” premiered in 1970 as part of a rotation with “McCloud” and “Night Gallery” but sunk after six episodes), a comedy about a therapist and his patients was edgy, requiring the deadpan, everyman talents of one of the top stand-ups in the business.

Almost 40 years later, pretty much everyone’s been in therapy -- and compiling a comprehensive list of TV therapists would be an exercise in madness. “The Sopranos” had the last big twist on TV series psychology by sending a mobster to the couch. The relationship between Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) and Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) tested the limits of what therapy could accomplish in a water-cooler way.

But since then, shrinks have lost much of their zeitgeist sizzle. Conversation-worthy insight and irritating advice is more likely to be delivered by personal trainers, nutritionists, AA sponsors and Oprah than a therapist, and comedians are more likely to discuss the revelatory experience of a colonic.

Still, head doctors fit quite well into the essential narrative drama of most television: that flawed and ordinary people still manage to do extraordinary things. In terms of the ever-popular “physician, heal thyself” story, therapists are Ground Zero as “Frasier” made abundantly clear. Although Frasier (Kelsey Grammer), his ex-wife Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) and brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce) were all therapists, they were all far too busy coping with their own neuroses to actually have too many patients. (Frasier himself turned to radio.)

On “In Treatment,” Byrne’s Weston is going more for irony and pathos, and a few moments that feel like actual therapy. In this season, as he pushes his patients to explore their complicated and painful relationships with parents and children, he realizes that his own memories of his father may have been more convenient than accurate. (Which is much fresher and more interesting than last season’s doomed flirtation with a patient.)

Wentworth’s Goode is not interested in anything remotely like that. This season, she is getting mar-ried, and so hilariously oblivious to her own reality that her fiance is more interested in the wedding’s star-studded guest list (he’s a struggling agent) than the actual vows. (Probably because he’s cheating on her with her own sister.)

The two shows are obviously genre opposites, drama vs. comedy, but more than that they reflect the two fears many people still have about therapy -- that stirring things up will cause more problems than it will solve, and that those dingy high-priced doctors aren’t really listening.

“In Treatment” doesn’t shy away from the former -- as the patients’ stories unfold, things inevitably get worse before they get better -- and “Head Case” revels in the latter. Goode is so not listening to her patients that she regularly interrupts to ask for advice on her upcoming wedding.

The joke of “Head Case” is that this is precisely the kind of therapist Hollywood types deserve, and more than that, that they need -- someone who speaks their bubble-language of self-delusion. Although not quite as inspired, or moving, as Ricky Gervais’ “Extras,” “Head Case” is very funny and has similar moments of multi-pronged outrageousness.

Watching Goode lead “Desperate Housewives” creator Marc Cherry through a series of slickly hostile encounters with James Fenton (in one episode Cherry informs him that his character has to turn gay or get axed), a viewer is torn between admiration for all involved to play themselves so wickedly and the feeling that this is probably not anywhere near as satiric as it seems.

In a way, “Head Case” brings television full circle. One of the first psychiatrists to appear regularly was Admiral Bellows in “I Dream of Jeannie,” played to full blowhard (“Bellows,” get it?) comedic effect by Hayden Rorke. Zachary Smith (Jonathan Harris) of “Lost In Space” was also a psychologist, in addition to being a liar, spy and, one suspected, a closet space queen.

Newhart’s Bob Hartley was, of course, none of these things. What made his show so successful, and such a breakthrough, was that he was a relatively normal man surrounded by crazy people. And although it was a comedy, he was actually trying to help them.

Now that wouldn’t be enough. He’d have to have an affair with Carol. Or Jerry. Or both. Just to keep things interesting.

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mary.mcnamara@latimes.com