TVtherapy: The Television Guide to Life

by Beverly West, Jason Bergund

Finally, a home theater companion that understands what we’ve all known for years–our favorite TV shows are more than an escape, they’re best friends and a form of therapy that can help us cope with everything from a bad hair day to a nuclear family meltdown.

Life getting boring in your cul-de-sac? Indulge in some Diva TV like Desperate Housewives and take a walk on the wild side of Wisteria Lane.

Need a place where everybody knows your name? Drop in for a little You’ve Got a Friend TV like Cheers and order some fun on the rocks without having to face the hangover in the morning.

White-knuckling the armchair of life? Let go with a little Anti-Anxiety TV like
In Living Color and laugh at your fears.

Got a bad case of the codependent blues? Indulge in a little Codependent TV like Nip/Tuck and reassure yourself that things could definitely be worse!

So whether you’re on the verge of your nineteenth nervous breakdown, looking for an excuse to throw a TV party, or searching for deeper meaning– The Television Guide to Life will give you the guidance you need to find the right television prescription to match your mood, cure your malaise, or make your night without ever getting up off the couch.

Recipes from Bev’s TV tray, including food facials for staying as cool as a cucumber…Jason’s Minibar, featuring drinks to wet your inner whistle…and timeless quotes from TV sages down through the ages who can teach us all a thing or two about life on and off the air.

192 pages, Paperback

First published August 30, 2005

About the author

Beverly West is a bestselling developmental editor, ghostwriter and publishing brand strategist. Bev specializes in big think books by thought leaders in the areas of entrepreneurialism, sales, marketing and memoir.

Bev’s recent projects include Flip the Script by the incomparable sales guru Oren Klaff (Portfolio) Luck Comes to Visit It Doesn’t Come to Stay (Forbes) by iconic impresario Charles Koppelman (Forbes), Innovation in Translationk How Big Ideas Really Happen by visionary innovator Dave Ferrera, and Youth Nation by Matt Britton.
Bev’s work regularly appears in Forbesand Fortune. Her work has also appeared in Wired,US Weekly, Redbook, Vogue, Body and Soul, Nylon, Real Simple, Paper, Self, Marie Claire, Metrosource, and People Magazine.
Bev’s books have been featured in the New York Times, the New York Daily News, the Boston Herald, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun Times, the Miami Herald, the Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and the Daily Oklahoman. Additionally, Bev was a national spokesperson for Netflix, and the lead writer for Monster.com’s Work/Life Balance area.

Bev lives with her husband Jason, 2 pugs, 1 rescue mutt named Olive, and one very confident cat on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Reviews

[Petty Lisbon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book in a bad funk and it was a good mood lifter. This book took me back to the time when cable channels had marathons of random shows that you'd get into on a sick day and you'd read the TWOP thread about it at the same time. It reminded me that snark doesn't just have to mean hating something excessively but loving something enough to poke fun at it using everything you know about it. The writers were actually funny and they were clever at how they grouped shows. It was a weird time capsule for all the flop reality shows I forgot about or never heard of that were on for 2 seasons before the new franchise ones like the Kardashians and Housewives started. I would like a sequel for all the new shows that are out there but I feel like we lost our way and anything before 1990 would miss the cut. I don't have any real complaints but I'd like information for what channels the shows aired on. And my only real beef is that they mentioned prom in their description for Charmed and Degrassi/80's Degrassi wasn't included when it feels like the perfect inclusion, but I enjoyed this enough to check out the other books in the series.
It also included recipes. I have no clue if they were real or usable because I skipped them after the 4th one but you should check that out.

[Shant · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5. I liked the concept but I thought it would be more specific than it actually was. A lot of the shows' lessons were too similar to each other (i.e. for the 70's show Maude, it would say 'in the Tuckahoe, NY, of life, maybe we're all on our 4th marriage and pregnant at 47 years old, but hey, that's okay'). I liked the selection of shows, going from old to new to prestige to reality show and even the occasional tv movie (For 2005, this was especially impressive). That said, I thought the last two chapters, Anti anxiety and soul searching, were kind of weird, because I thought the book in general was supposed to cover this.

Maybe I just replace the title of the book with comfort TV, but I feel like more 90's (~TGIF) sitcoms should have been on. I remember Full House was in the book, but Boy Meets World, Family Matters, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and probably Clueless could have been included. Oz being in the book was too bizarre given the subject matter, and felt kind of like 'well at least you're not them'. And mentioning a prom for Charmed but not Rose McGowan but not the meta drama was interesting.

But finally, there was no Golden Girls? That show is comfort and therapy.