Reality actors are selected for the television. The producers try to bring together the types of interpersonal chemistry that will lead to some sort of engaging drama. There are mental health professionals in the business that screen the actors to make sure they will make it to the end of the program and not suffer major emotional consequences from participating in this medium. Under some circumstance adding the element of both vulnerability and intensity, everyone is brought together. Hours of interactions are filmed, some of the events are prearranged, and in the days of recording it is important for something coherent to emerge that can fit into the time slot allowing space for advertisers and network breaks. These stories must appear natural and spontaneous rather than stapled together and poorly glued. Thus, the hours of audio and image are provided to the Story team. This team is there during the filming, creating moments but their major role occurs after the cast and the filming crew leave. The have cut days down to minutes, in film this cutting was this referred to as the shooting ratio, how many feet of film were used to produce a foot of film in the final cut. This Story team is one of the keys to successful reality program. What emerges through this process of editing is the development of a story arc that will be compelling and engaging by design. There are lessons here from reality television that we might all learn from.
In my work as a psychologist, one element I noticed early, was that those suffering from emotional swings and experience invariably had lives that were more composed of scenes and events rather than a life that had a story arc. This loss of the narrative structure is mirrored the person’s struggles with integrating their experiences into a coherent sense of themselves and others. An affair for example produces scenes not edited with the events in the home and the family. It is as if the person is now two separate characters. When I teach assessment, I will commonly point out that a sign that an individual is lacking cohesiveness in their existence, is seen when you try to integrate something the client hasn’t, their own fragmentation. They have never addressed in terms of their overall view of themselves their disparate elements. Some individuals view their character based on their avatar of themselves, never considering their actions. There are others living both contingently and in reactivity, responding differently depending on the company they are keeping, and the gratifications supplied at the venue of their unpredicted arrival. There is excitement found in the drama of the scene, but that alone does not create the opportunity for character development, the resolution of conflict, and the deepening of the intimacy of relationships. As the digital world helps make our attention span shorter, and we are more subjected to flashes of images, a culture of texts, mobile photo snaps, and social media posts, the editing of our life story becomes harder with the inundation of more images. A reality television ends shooting, and then post production takes over. These hours filming are hard to edit into a true story. It is only through contemplation, and a sense of what is a worthwhile that the narrative becomes a good nonfiction novel. We need post production interludes for self-reflection. After words with prospective we fashion the future with both meaning and real connection. It is the power of connection that makes life worthwhile, not the intensity of the color or image of an event-based life, where the essence of a deeper longing remains unseen. For many, it is the therapist that assists in pulling together life’s footage helping the client to discover patterns and ways to re-script relationships enabling more profound beginnings, middles and endings. So, we ask, among the many roles we play, is there an arc that ties it all together or do our lives need to be defragged? If so how?