Paul Weston

Grew up… taking care of his mother after his father, a cardiac surgeon, left the family for a woman half his age. Paul has a few psychological issues rooted in his relationship with his family.

Living… two lives. Paul must keep his professional life separate from his personal life, though the two often mix. Being a psychotherapist is a full-time profession. He’s constantly musing about his patients, and it’s not always positive: “If patients could see what I think about them, if they could really see inside my head, they’d head for the hills, believe me. They’d run for cover.”

Profession… psychotherapist. “Though in my profession we say the customer is always wrong,” he jokes. Paul’s dedication to his job has put an added amount of strain on his marriage recently.

Interests… his patients, even though he’s begun to “lose patience” with many of them. “I have to find something in each of my patients that I love,” he says. “Otherwise I won’t be able to treat them.”

Relationship Status… married, though Paul and his wife Kate seem to have drifted away from each other. It also doesn’t help that one of Paul’s patients, Laura, has been expressing sexual interest in him.

Challenge… fixing his patients while finding out what he wants from his own life. Paul has to carry the weight of many psychological burdens, many of which do not belong to him. But Paul has recently been having doubts about his abilities as a doctor. As he puts it, “And then I say to myself: do I really know any of these people? Or are they all just one big fiction that I’ve constructed in my head, you know?”

Personality… smart, professional, and troubled. Paul is always kind and calm with his patients, but he takes the opportunity to let his true feelings out when he’s with his own therapist, Gina. To put it simply, Paul is stressed out. He feels an enormous responsibility for his patients and his family.