Best Of: Jason Segel / Lisa Kudrow

Jason Segel plays a psychotherapist having a nervous breakdown on the Apple TV+ series Shrinking, but the show’s approach to therapy is not just a plot device. It is based on a real, unconventional school of thought that Segel has personally adopted. In this interview with Terry Gross, Segel explains the practical mechanism behind this therapy, what he has learned from it, and how playing a character at rock bottom forced him to confront his own patterns of anxiety and OCD.

The Therapy That Tells You What to Do

The core idea behind the therapy depicted in Shrinking is a break from traditional, open-ended talk therapy. Segel describes the problem it aims to solve: patients spend weeks rehashing where their problems come from, but what they really need is “some hope about what to do on Tuesday.” The therapists who inspired the show—a group centered around Phil Stutz, subject of a documentary—decided to change the rules. Instead of gently guiding patients to their own conclusions, they give direct advice. “People really just want to be told what to do to some extent,” Segel says. “We can figure out the why later.”