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alright, i want you to lay it on me. what do you think of Betsy Dobson? is she a good therapist? is she good for Andrew specifically? give me your thoughts please

Hi Milo!!!

Okay! So my thoughts on Betsy are complex [I initially had “like most of my thoughts” but after editing I’ve realized that sounds like the most deranged humble brag ever, so]. Like all of the AFTG characters (including Riko) I love Betsy as a character.

However, I find the tendency to venerate Betsy as the Perfect Mother Figure in regard to Andrew, in a series that depicts a lot of complicated parent-child relationships: Mary & Neil, Wymack & Kevin, Tilda & Aaron, Cass & Andrew, even Tetsuji & Riko, diminishes the actual complexity of Betsy’s character, her relationship with Andrew & her role as the Foxes (+ Jean’s) therapist. Venerating Betsy as the Perfect Mother/Perfect Therapist neglects potential flaws she has & the tension she creates within the narrative. AFTG is also a series where all the characters, including the more “Adult” characters like Wymack & Abby, have their biases and character flaws.

I’ve made it abundantly clear that I love Messy Found Family Dynamics more than the “perfect family where everyone easily understands one another and always get along” (which is why I’m also interested in the messiness of the Hemmick-Minyard family dynamics instead of “wholesome Twinyards” or Nicky as the “Perfect Guardian” - which, a bit off-topic, but I do find it a bit strange when people refer to Nicky as having “raised” the twins. Y’all they were 16, not 6. And Nicky was 20 & let them drink and do drugs. He was more like an older brother than their father).

However, while I think Fanon has really run with the whole “Mama Bee” concept, I can’t actually put the onus entirely on Fanon this time because the concept did originate with Nora. Now, Fanon definitely exaggerates it to an extent - as Fandom tends to exaggerate much of Canon. I don’t think Andrew would ever actually call Betsy mom nor would she refer to him as her son, especially if he was still her patient who she is being paid by the university to administer mental health care to. Mainly because that would be horrifically inappropriate and if someone did write that it would be much more interesting to read about the fallout that the breaking of those professional boundaries between a therapist/patient could create than just uncritically celebrate how “good this is for Andrew.”

(Fallout whether in terms of Betsy’s career due to her reputation taking a hit or Betsy informing Andrew she cannot be his therapist anymore because of their emotional connection, which I think would devastate Andrew because he would perceive it as a form of abandonment [I’ve mentioned before that I read Andrew as having anxious attachment, and possibly BPD alongside C-PTSD brought on from frequent childhood abandonment, neglect, and childhood sexual abuse, which can result in an unstable identity as an adult (as shown by Andrew reshaping himself to what others need) + resulting in one constantly searching for external validation to affirm their identity (Andrew’s deals). People with this trauma can become very attached to their therapists, and are also more sensitive to feeling abandoned by a therapist + others, which is why Andrew often forms codependent bonds with other characters]. Betsy needing to recommend Andrew to another therapist because their relationship has evolved past the appropriate level for a therapist-patient wouldn’t feel like a win to Andrew, but a loss. Andrew is also very much a “having his cake and eating it too” kind of character in the sense that he would want Betsy to fulfill both a therapist & maternal role in his life even if that would NOT be advisable, in the same way he wanted Neil & his deal with Aaron to stand, or Nicky to be part of his group while also not acknowledging Nicky as part of his family).

I have seen some readers acknowledge that they know Betsy isn’t a realistic therapist & her relationship with her patients isn’t realistic & they aren’t looking for realistic dynamics in AFTG, but like I said one of the aspects I like about AFTG is the complicated relationships between characters: Aaron & Andrew have a complicated brother-brother relationship, Wymack & Kevin a complicated father-son relationship, the Foxes are a fractured team. Making Betsy too perfect & her relationship with Andrew without tensions feels… contradictory to the rest of AFTG.

As always, my many & long thoughts will be under the Read More. (Part 1/2)

I believe Betsy was definitely written to be a good therapist. Within-universe, she is meant to be the “best” therapist basically.

Nora has admitted in the past that she doesn’t really like therapists (same with fathers). But that Betsy, in regard to being a therapist, similar to Wymack in regard to being a father, is meant to be one of the Good Ones. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean we have to read Betsy as perfect, however, I ultimately think we are meant to read Betsy as someone who genuinely cares about her job & the patients under her care & as someone who has a positive impact on ‘troubled’ characters such as Andrew, Aaron, Jean & possibly even Kevin & Neil. This is reinforced in TSC & TGR when Betsy becomes JEAN’S therapist, despite him not attending Palmetto University. The other therapists - such as Jeremy’s therapist & the other therapist recommended for Jean - in contrast are obviously lackluster, and bad at their jobs. Even though Jeremy’s therapist does have a valid reason in regard to her dying daughter.

So, while I think we are ultimately meant to consider Betsy to be a good therapist whose advice is meant to be helpful & her treatment meant to be improving the well-being of the characters under her care, I also think the cracks are obvious even in the books & that can be expanded upon further instead of neglected.

Let me start with the logistical problems of Betsy as the “best” therapist. She is written to be a kind of “catch-all” therapist who seemingly specializes in every form of therapy known. Student counseling, family counseling, grief counseling, childhood abuse - physical, emotional & sexual, rape recovery, eating disorder recovery, and seemingly every mental health condition in existence from depression to anxiety. Realistically, a therapist would not be adequately trained to provide services on every single one of those issues & an individual would have multiple therapists to receive adequate treatment as required. Andrew would have been referred to a therapist that specialized in providing treatment for CSA/SA. [Do I think Andrew as a character would hate that? Yes. Do I think it would ultimately be better for him & also avoid the pitfall of forming too strong of an emotional attachment to a singular therapist? Also yes].

Additionally, Betsy treating Andrew’s individual mental health, as well as providing family counseling to Andrew & Aaron AND providing mental health services to Nicky (Andrew’s cousin), Neil (Andrew’s partner), Kevin (Andrew’s friend) and the rest of the Foxes (Andrew’s teammates) results in multiple severe conflicts on interest. Now, Betsy states in-text that she can be impartial & objective regardless of who she is treating, and this is also just my own personal values. but: I do not believe anyone on Earth is actually capable of being objective. Many people strive towards it, and when it comes to mental health there are policies in place meant to help therapists retain as much objectivity as possible. However, there is no such thing as someone who can be purely objective & without biases and when those barriers are eroded then there will be risks (that I think would be interesting to explore instead of dismissing!).

Moreover, during Betsy’s POV she very obviously is biased towards Andrew, “her most precious charge.” The Fandom can tell that Betsy is biased towards Andrew - which is where the obsession with “Mama Bee” came from. And since Andrew’s obvious childhood desire was to Have A Good Mother, much of the Fandom wants Betsy to be the fulfillment of that desire, even though that might not necessarily be the best outcome for Andrew. Other characters in-universe can also tell that Betsy is biased towards Andrew - Neil, Kevin, Aaron. They all express some amount of knowledge/paranoia regarding that Betsy is “Andrew’s.” Realistically, Betsy cannot provide adequate care to people close to Andrew when she is blatantly biased towards him (or when those closest to Andrew know that Andrew himself is very attached to her, colouring how they may wish to interact with Betsy). She cannot separate her emotional attachment from Andrew - or even seemingly hide it from others - to form an opinion as if he were a stranger meaning that she will be, even subconsciously, more geared to take Andrew’s side/want what is best for ANDREW even potentially at the detriment to others. Also, she may be less willing to tell him harsh truths or push him past his comfort zone out of care for him.

Neil believes (and we as readers are also meant to believe) that Betsy is the best person to heal Andrew & Aaron. Unfortunately, in the canonical therapy scene we do have with Betsy, Andrew, and Aaron, Betsy is actually doing very little as a therapist. Aaron speaks to Andrew while ignoring her completely, and Andrew speaks to Betsy, although not even really about what Aaron is saying. She’s basically providing a space for them to talk. Aaron doesn’t respect her as a therapist & in the Canon scene we do have of their therapy, he’s in fact using Andrew’s attachment to Betsy to out Andrew to her & make Andrew uncomfortable so he can get the upper-hand in breaking their deal

[which I’m not against Aaron for doing this, he had to do what he had to do, however, even in the Andrew & Aaron therapy scene we have with Betsy, her role as a therapist isn’t as important as her role of Being Important To Andrew - and other therapy scenes we have with Betsy in regard to Neil, Neil isn’t really interacting with her because she makes him uncomfortable. We also have the scene where Betsy offers Neil therapy in the car after Andrew was raped post-Thanksgiving, and while Betsy’s intentions were good & with the intent to help when she offers Neil a session in the car, if you are ever trying to have an uncomfortable conversation with someone who you know is often unwilling to talk to you… trying to start that conversation when y’all are trapped in a small moving box neither of you can escape from, is NOT the way to go about it. Neil knows Betsy is a therapist & if he wanted to speak to her, he could have initiated that kind of conversation].

Additionally, everything Betsy knows about Aaron is from Andrew or from Nicky, and she doesn’t have an emotional bond with Aaron. She has an emotional connection to Andrew, who buys her gifts, texts her, watches musicals with her, goes out to ice-cream with her. This has the potential to become very, very messy. Betsy doesn’t have an equal relationship with her patients where they can actually trust she isn’t biased, even though she reassures them that she isn’t.

Furthermore, the fact that Betsy treats every character about every issue under the Sun,also means that Betsy can form opinions/treatment plans based on information about someone that she has learned from someone else. Betsy stresses in the books - as does the Fandom - that Betsy will not share information about another patient to another patient without permission. That is only half the problem of having a singular therapist for an entire family/friend group/team. The other half of the problem is, for example: Nicky tells Betsy something about Andrew or Aaron - a deep, personal secret that was told to Nicky in confidence. Betsy cannot tell Andrew or Aaron that Nicky told her this, however, it’s not like she will have amnesia in regard to this information when interacting with Andrew or Aaron. Therefore, Betsy has MORE information about the patients that she is treating than they are even aware of her having. And this is true for all the Foxes. Aaron even acknowledges this during their therapy scene when he mentions that Betsy undoubtedly knows he has been homophobic to Nicky in the past from Nicky. This means that Betsy already has preconceived notions about Aaron’s character, which Aaron then has to dismantle.

Part 1/2: This ended up MUCH longer than even I thought, so I’ll reblog part 2 under this post.

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