Sandbox / Manufacturing Wick Checks

OP: Maths Angelic Version

Category: Not Thriving / Not Tropeworthy

Manufacturing Victims is supposed to be a trope about when a therapist keeps a patient stuck in their problems or even makes them worse, but several of the examples are shoehorned (typically by failing to involve any therapists).

The trope has 29 wicks — not quite starving, but pretty low for a trope created back in 2010. Worse, the wicks only reveal examples from 11 distinct works of fiction, and that's including the questionable ones (otherwise we're down to 8). Even most of the trope description is about how the trope applies in real life, not fiction. This suggests that the pattern of "therapist just keeps the patient dependent on therapy" is potentially Too Rare to Trope and better off folded into a broader trope like "an unethical healthcare practitioner exploits the patient for their own gain" or "the 'help' from an unethical or badly misguided healthcare practitioner is useless or only makes it worse".

The trope name likely contributes to the low amount of use because it doesn't make it clear that the trope about unhelpful therapy, which makes it harder to find if you're looking for something like that. It also leads to dubious examples that aren't about therapy (or something very similar like self-help groups). In particular, some people confuse it for Poison and Cure Gambit — after all, you are "manufacturing" victims if you caused their problem in the first place.

Finally, it's unfortunate that both the trope name and the description give undue weight to a non-notable author's criticism of therapy. Especially considering the dubiousness of basing an NRLEP trope on a non-fiction book with an agenda.

Proposed solution: Considering that it needs a rewrite, a rename and an expanded definition, we might as well cut it and yard the potentially tropeworthy ideas mentioned in the second paragraph. Save the examples in a sandbox for future TLPs.

Therapist keeps their patient dependent on therapy or makes their problems worse (10/31, 32%)

1. Plots: A therapist gets their patients hooked on therapy to keep the money rolling in instead of actually helping them with their problems.
2. Withholding the Cure: Compare and contrast Manufacturing Victims, which involves therapists keeping their patients in therapy.
3. WesternAnimation.Drawn Together: "Toot Goes Bollywood" has Foxxy going into therapy for her nymphomania. The psychiatrist, Wooldoor, implants a false memory of childhood sexual abuse, and this false memory takes over her life- ruining it, making her end up in jail, and leading her to murder a lot of innocent people - in that order.
4. WesternAnimation.Paradise PD: Fitz's psychologist, Dr. Larry seemed to be the kind of doctor who wanted to profit off of Fitz's insecurities instead of actually solving them. In "Black & Blue", Dr. Larry suggested that Fitz use a piccolo to help him battle his PTSD. As Gina pointed out, this could have very well just been a placebo, since Dr. Larry also owns the music store Fitz bought this from.
5. LawAndOrderSVU.Tropes G To P (1/2): The show has played this card a few times. There's a few episodes that deal with "repressed memory" therapists and the problems they cause, since "repressed memories" are usually false.
6. Film.The Brood: Not as in erotic or romantic love, but Mike, one of Raglan's patients, becomes addicted to the treatment when Raglan plays a surrogate of his father who gives Mike all the love his real father didn't give him. He constantly looks for someone to "be my daddy" when Raglan throws every patient of the institute out when he's dealing with Nola's ultimate breakdown. He even says that no one can play his daddy like Dr. Raglan, giving it a very creepy and disturbing pseudo-incestuous vibe.
7. Characters.Bio Shock (2/2): Apparently, as a very devout member of the Rapture Family, he's hopelessly addicted to Sofia Lamb's therapy.
8. Characters.Eminem: They encourage their patients to keep up their addictions so the Popsomp Hills staff can keep making money "treating" them.
   Life is too short, party harder than ever. We can help.
9. ComicStrip.Dykes To Watch Out For: Averted and lampshaded — as Mo turns into a therapy junkie as a way of avoiding dealing with her life, her therapist actually throws her out (but it turns out that it was all a dream that Mo had after dozing off while waiting for a chiropractic adjustment).
10. SouthPark.Tropes K To Q: In "Bloody Mary", Randy is forced into Alcoholics Anonymous after being arrested for drunk driving. After being told that he has a "terminal illness", he convinced himself that he was a sick man with alcoholism, sitting in a wheelchair downing beer bottles like the alcoholic he believes himself to be. It's implied that the other members of the "support group" had equally dysfunctional relationships.

Someone distributes a drug to exploit addicts (6/31, 19%)

Amusingly, all but one of these refer to the same example

1. Corporate Conspiracy: A Scanner Darkly: New Path, the company that runs the only existing rehab centers for Substance D addicts, is actually the one growing the plants the drug is distilled from, and is Manufacturing Victims to give them a convenient source of patients and slave labor.
2. A Scanner Darkly: Multiple examples about how a sleazy company is making a drug to exploit addicts
3. MagnificentBastard.Animated Films: A Scanner Darkly: Audrey and Mike are two cops who have tried to infiltrate New Path, a rehab company which is secretly flooding the drug Market Substance D. To this end they end up getting Bob Arctor hooked on Substance D by having Audrey pose as Hank, his boss, and Donna as his supplier. With Donna supplying him the drugs and Hank ordering him to spy on himself, they end up driving him further into addiction such that he'll be forced to go to a New Path rehab. While there, Mike, as an orderly, has him transferred to a farm. They later debate the moral and practical aspects of the plan with Mike thinking it'll be worth it for future generations and hoping that Arctor has enough function to take back some evidence of the production. His hope turns out to be well founded; Arctor takes a flower which is one of Substance D ingredients, planning to give it to his friends when he sees them on Thanksgiving.
4. Sandbox.Magnificent Bastard Animated Films: Duplicate of the above
5. YMMV.A Scanner Darkly: Magnificent Bastard: Audrey and Mike are two cops who have tried to infiltrate New Path, a rehab company which is secretly flooding the drug Market Substance D. To this end they end up getting Bob Arctor hooked on Substance D by having Audrey pose as Hank, his boss, and Donna as his supplier. With Donna supplying him the drugs and Hank ordering him to spy on himself, they end up driving him further into addiction such that he'll be forced to go to a New Path rehab. While there Mike, as an orderly, has him transferred to a farm. They later debate the moral and practical aspects of the plan with Mike thinking it'll be worth it for future generations and hoping that Arctor has enough function to take back some evidence of the production. His hope turns out to be well founded, Arctor takes a flower which is one of Substance D ingredients, planning to give it to his friends when he sees them on Thanksgiving.
6. Characters.Bio Shock (1/2): Ironically, many of them injected Plasmids as a means of defense against the splicers. Well aware of how addictive ADAM is and how desperate a splicer is when deprived, Fontaine and Ryan made a fortune by cornering this market - and lead Rapture to becoming an absolute madhouse.

Miscellaneous questionable use (8/31, 26%)

1. Abuse Mistake: These helpers might even go to great lengths trying to force her to "realize" that she's a victim of abuse. Is about inducing a problem that doesn't exist, but has no mention of therapists or the victim becoming dependent on therapy.
2. Sandbox.Abuse Mistake: Same as above
3. Brand Names Are Better: Eminem's Relapse has been noted by critics as containing an entire pharmacopeia of branded drugs, many of which will have listeners running to Google. This was because Em, a word geek, fell in love with the different brand names for medication during his stay in rehab, liking how they used unusual and catchy combinations of vowel sounds that made them fun to rhyme things with. It also helps emphasise the fact that, in the story, Slim isn't addicted to the scary illegal drugs that normally show up in rap music (although there's a couple of mentions of weed and ecstasy), but to the apparently mundane drugs prescribed by doctors in a health system based on Manufacturing Victims. Seems to focus on sleazy doctors, not therapists.
4. Categorism as a Phobia: Dynamisk Psykiatri ("Dynamic Psychiatry") by Professor Johan Cullberg is one of the main psychiatric textbooks in Sweden. Earlier editions contain advice on how to "cure" homosexuality, even long after international psychiatry had abandoned the idea of considering homosexuality to be a mental disturbance. The 2003 edition has abandoned the talk about curing homosexuality, instead talking about how to cure homophobia. Treating it as if that was a real psychiatric disorder. Needless to say, this textbook is subject to much critique and protest. Seems dubious because this is a case where the "victims" often don't want the supposed treatment. Might need to be removed for effectively being a contentious real-life example anyway.
5. Characters.Sabikui Bisco: The Rust has actually been on the decline for several years, and as Kurokawa rely on selling expensive medication, it is starting to eat into his profits. As such he has begun a plan to spread the Rust once more while keeping the Rust Eater to himself to ensure that people become dependent on him. Sounds more like Poison and Cure Gambit
6. Theatre.The Wild Duck: The profession of Relling, to the disgust of Gregers. He claims that Molvik is "daemonic", but openly admits that this is a meaningless label intended to keep Molvik from collapsing under the weight of his own self-loathing (if his alcoholism doesn't kill him first). Hjalmar believes in an "invention" he shall create, but he never actually works on it, instead spending long hours lying on the sofa supposedly thinking about it. A dubious attempt at therapy for sure, but no mention of the therapist making him worse (he seems to be a hopeless case) or keeping him addicted
7. Characters.Bio Shock 1: By using ADAM in his treatments, Steinman unwittingly ensured that any of his patients that weren't already addicted had a pretty good chance of becoming addicted after leaving the surgery. And given that excessive use of ADAM tends to result in disfiguration, quite a few of his patients would have returned for further treatments. Appears to be about sketchy medical treatments, not therapy
8. LawAndOrderSVU.Tropes G To P (2/2): The cast does it too, though. There are numerous incidents where a "victim" doesn't think she was victimized, and she is portrayed as being in denial. Which is possible, although in some cases it seems more like they legitimately weren't traumatized by whatever "should" have traumatized them. The cast members are not therapists
   • On one occasion, the victim couldn't remember the rape since she'd been drugged (the squad only knows because the rapist recorded it) and makes the argument to Liv that she is trying to make her feel victimized while Liv maintains that the woman has to deal with the trauma, even if she can't remember.
   Victim (having not claimed to have been assaulted up to this point): "How did I get these bruises on my legs?"
   Benson: "That's where your rapist prised your thighs apart prior to raping you".

ZCE/Unclassifiable (7/31, 23%)

1. Narrative Devices: Just an index with a contextless mention of the page
2. Psychology Tropes: Just an index with a contextless mention of the page
3. Sociology Tropes: Just an index with a contextless mention of the page
4. Victimhood Tropes: Just an index with a contextless mention of the page
5. It.Elenco Provvisorio M: Just suggests an Italian translation for the trope name
6. NoRealLife.Tropes L To O: Just says "too controversial"
7. WebVideo.Zinnia Jones: The episode I am not a symptom. A weblink with no further context