Frasier (TV Series)
Frasier's Edge (2001)
Rene Auberjonois: Professor William Tewksbury
Quotes
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Professor William Tewksbury : [on phone] It's a minor crisis. I'll be there in half an hour.
Dr. Frasier Crane : [calling out the window] What does it all mean!
Professor William Tewksbury : [on phone] Make it an hour.
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Professor William Tewksbury : [Professor Tewksbury is having Frasier diagnose himself as if he were a caller] On line one, we have Frasier Crane from Seattle.
Dr. Frasier Crane : Hello, Dr. Crane. I love your show, I'm a big fan.
[laughs at himself, then]
Dr. Frasier Crane : I won't bore you with all the details of my life... because you know them. Suffice to say, I'm a successful psychiatrist. My problem is that, in spite of the life I've built, I feel... empty.
[He gets up and moves to the other chair at Tewksbury's gesture]
Dr. Frasier Crane : Ah, emptiness. The eternal void. If I'm not mistaken, it was John Keats who once wrote...
Professor William Tewksbury : Stalling. Deal with the feelings.
Dr. Frasier Crane : All right, fair enough. Perhaps caller, if we reframe the issue...
Professor William Tewksbury : Redefining the problem. Deal with the feelings.
Dr. Frasier Crane : Uh... let's run down Beck's Depression Inventory...
Professor William Tewksbury : Re-diagnosing. You know what the problem is: the caller feels empty. Go on.
Dr. Frasier Crane : All right. Last month in the New England Journal...
Professor William Tewksbury : He's already read it.
Dr. Frasier Crane : How do you know?
Professor William Tewksbury : The caller is Frasier Crane. If you did, he did.
Dr. Frasier Crane : I can suggest certain visualization techniques...
Professor William Tewksbury : He knows them already.
Dr. Frasier Crane : Look, if he knows all this, then why is he calling?
Professor William Tewksbury : He told you: because he's empty. Keep going.
Dr. Frasier Crane : Sometimes it helps to write yourself a letter...
Professor William Tewksbury : He's already got himself on the phone.
Dr. Frasier Crane : I don't know what he wants!
Professor William Tewksbury : Then why do you keep trying to bury him in psychiatric exercises?
Dr. Frasier Crane : Because that's all I have!
[Frasier is shocked at the revelation. Tewksbury gives him a knowing, sad look]
Dr. Frasier Crane : I'm sorry, caller, I can't help you.
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Professor William Tewksbury : So, you were drawn to psychiatry not because you liked to help people, but because you feared them.
Dr. Frasier Crane : I feared them?
Professor William Tewksbury : Psychiatry gives you objectivity. Objectivity gives you emotional distance. Distance makes you feel safe.
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Dr. Frasier Crane : All right, let's cut the bull.
[reads the card]
Dr. Frasier Crane : You must be very proud. Why not I'm proud of you? Why speculation rather than declaration? We both know there are no mistakes. There must have been some reason either conscious or unconscious that you chose these words.
Professor William Tewksbury : Frasier, I have a confession to make.
Dr. Frasier Crane : Ah!
Professor William Tewksbury : My assistant wrote the card.
Dr. Frasier Crane : Oh.
Professor William Tewksbury : You see, when I heard you were getting an award, I asked her to send flowers with a note of congratulations. I'm afraid you've been overanalyzing.
Dr. Frasier Crane : I see. Then again, perhaps, in that order to your assistant, you subconsciously transmitted an emotion that you couldn't or didn't want to acknowledge.
Professor William Tewksbury : Or perhaps your subconscious assigned new meaning to the words to reflect your self-doubt.
Dr. Frasier Crane : But all art is self-portraiture, and that includes the written word.
Professor William Tewksbury : However, we can only view art through the lens of our own psyches.
Dr. Frasier Crane : Then there is no pure art.
Professor William Tewksbury : How would you know?
Dr. Frasier Crane : [beat]
[smiling]
Dr. Frasier Crane : God, I've missed you!
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Dr. Frasier Crane : What is your point?
Professor William Tewksbury : My point is that at the age of eight--at eight--you began to use psychiatry as a way to deal with a world that scared you to death. And this lifetime achievement award has made you realize that your career is finite. And once it's gone, all you'll have left is that frightened eight-year-old boy.
