Lion Counseling Podcast

šŸŽ™ļø Episode 49 ā€“ A Therapist Reacts to Ted Lasso Getting Therapy

What happens when one of TVā€™s most optimistic characters finally sits down in the therapistā€™s chair?
In this episode of the Lion Counseling Podcast, Mark Odland and Zack Carter react to a powerful therapy scene from Ted Lassoā€”and break it down through the lens of real-world counseling, EMDR, and how men actually experience therapy. Thereā€™s no cheap takedown here. Just an honest, thoughtful analysis of what the show gets right, where it oversimplifies things, and what this scene reveals about fear, defensiveness, truth, and healing in men.
We explore Tedā€™s resistance, the therapistā€™s responses, and why so many successful men secretly fear therapyā€”even when they desperately need it.

In this episode, youā€™ll learn:
  • Why men often come into therapy guarded, sarcastic, or defensive
  • What Ted Lasso gets surprisingly right about the therapeutic process
  • How a skilled therapist builds trust without becoming a doormat
  • Why confronting the truth often hurts before it heals
  • How relationships with our fathers quietly shape adult identity
  • Why therapy can be a ā€œrelease valveā€ for men under pressure
  • Where Hollywood therapy crosses ethical or clinical lines
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šŸ’¬ Comment Prompt:
What did Ted Lasso get rightā€”or wrongā€”about therapy for men?

Click here to watch a video of this episode.ā€™
About the Lion Counseling Podcast
The Lion Counseling Podcast helps high-achieving men break free from hidden struggles, heal past wounds, and become the men God created them to be. Hosted by licensed therapist Mark Odland and counselor-coach Zack Carter, each episode blends psychology, faith, and real talkā€”without the fluff.

New episodes drop every week. Subscribe and join the conversation.

Creators and Guests

Host
Mark Odland
Founder of Lion Counseling, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Certified EMDR Therapist
Host
Zack Carter
Zack Carter is a Counselor and Coach with Lion Counseling LLC.

What is Lion Counseling Podcast?

The Lion Counseling Podcast helps men escape the cages that hold them back and become the Lions they were created to be. It exists to help men obtain success, purpose, happiness, and peace in their career and personal lives. The podcast is hosted by the founder of Lion Counseling, Mark Odland (Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified EMDR Therapist), and Zack Carter (Counselor and Coach with Lion Counseling). In their podcasts, they address a variety of topics relevant to men, including: mental health, relationships, masculinity, faith, success, business, and self-improvement.

Mark Odland:

Welcome everyone to the Lion Counseling Podcast where we help men to break free, heal deep, and become the lions God created them to be. I'm Mark Auden, licensed marriage and family therapist and certified EMDR therapist. And as always, joined by Zach Carter, counselor and coach. Well, today, we are talking about a beloved character on TV, Ted Lasso, a guy known for his optimism and kindness and holding everyone together. But in the scenes we're gonna react to, we're gonna see him sit down with a counselor, with a therapist.

Mark Odland:

And today, Zach and I are gonna react to this conversation and ask how good is this therapist really? We're gonna look at what Ted brings into the room, how the counselor responds, and whether this kind of therapy would actually help a guy like Ted or quietly miss what's going on. So there's no big takedown here. We're just just a thoughtful look at, what the show gets right, what it might get wrong, what it reveals about how men actually experience therapy. And I will confess, I have never seen this show.

Mark Odland:

So honest take. Alright, Zach. Let's lay it on me.

Zack Carter:

Let's Yeah. Let's dive in. To see yeah. I'm excited to see what you think of it. So kind of basic plot since you haven't seen it is Ted Lasso is from America.

Zack Carter:

He was a football coach, very successful, but he's going through some problems in his marriage. So his wife is thinking about ending the marriage. They have a son together. Yep. And so they decide that like him going to The UK and taking a job as a soccer coach, which he's never coached before, doesn't know anything about, would be a good idea.

Zack Carter:

They're like maybe some space would be good. So Ted takes this job with an assistant that he's known for a long time. And while he doesn't know much about soccer, like you said, he's very positive. He's determined, very fun to be around. But what we'll see in these scenes is that he's got a little bit of a chip on his shoulder around counseling, though.

Zack Carter:

So suddenly the character changes a bit when he gets into the counseling room. So I figure I'll I'll go ahead and start that first clip, and let's get your first impression. Sound good?

Mark Odland:

Yeah. Sounds great. Let's do it.

Zack Carter:

All these little chats you do. Truth? I'm only interested in the truth, Ted. You listening because you care about me. No.

Zack Carter:

No. You ain't listening to me because you pay. Alright. Mark, you're giggling.

Mark Odland:

Oh, man.

Zack Carter:

What are your thoughts?

Mark Odland:

Well, okay. I'm trying to imagine if you were my client. I can say, I don't know if I mean, I've had some intense couples therapy sessions where one spouse has left, like had to walk out for a while. I don't if I've ever had an individual client. So I would be thinking as a therapist, this guy does have a chip on his shoulder.

Mark Odland:

He's extremely defensive, extremely protective. What's he hiding? And underneath all that success that he might have in his life up until this point, man, he has gotta protect the the stuff inside from getting out because it's gonna hurt too much. And he knows it, and he senses it, and he's trying to put a stop to it right away. Right?

Mark Odland:

My other thought is he's making some big assumptions to try to, kinda put the therapist in a box. Right? Somehow she's unethical for her billing system instead of recognizing she's a highly educated person providing a valuable service and that there's no big, like, bait and switch. Like, fifty minutes being paid by the I mean, yeah. It's not a thing.

Mark Odland:

It's like, you need five minutes between sessions so you can, like, go to the bathroom and and actually take a breath so that you can be on your game for the next client. Right? And that's built into the consent paperwork that Ted probably didn't read. Right? And then the last thing is he's assuming that because she's paid, that means she doesn't care.

Mark Odland:

And guess what? You can walk and chew gum at the same time. Like, I know for a fact, Zach, that the two of us enjoy being good providers for our family. And yes, we don't apologize for making a good living at it. And at the very same time, drew, we truly care about our clients and we feel deep meaning and satisfaction when we can be a small part of their healing process.

Mark Odland:

So, but the therapist stayed pretty cool. I mean, she's just like, all right, he's gonna do his thing. And my guess is, I mean, I don't know. I haven't seen the next clip, but my guess is he'll be back.

Zack Carter:

I think, I think you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna be like, touchdown as soon as you see the next clip because it's so funny. Everybody, he's not seeing the next clip, and he kinda makes a lot of the points that she's going to make in the next clip. This is why you're so good at what you do because my first reaction would be to be defensive. So I would have started with, dude, the the fifty minutes is us talking. The rest is me doing a bunch of your paperwork.

Zack Carter:

Like, I'm still serving you as the client even though we're not physically sitting across from each other. And like you said, there's also like takes me five or six minutes to get paperwork done, and then I need to go pee and then, like, come back. And I don't know about you, but, like, oftentimes, you know, it's just back to back to back to back to back to back to back. And then, like, if you have a day like that, you lose your sanity. And by the time you get to like three or four p.

Zack Carter:

M, it's like can be really hard to concentrate on the clients. And so we like have to like have a minute. I realised when I was in banking a forty hour week, I was working fifteen or twenty hours a week and the rest was like sitting around chatting with the people I worked with. Right. When I work a forty hour week here.

Zack Carter:

That's a sixty hour week. Like, that's a bit maybe that's exaggerating a bit, but like between like emails and paperwork and scheduling and all the different things that we have to do. So maybe my initial I was like, how do you need that? Excuse me? How dare you?

Zack Carter:

How dare you, Ted Lasso? Exactly. You'd you'd be

Mark Odland:

like, well well, Ted, I don't like your mustache. What do you do about that?

Zack Carter:

That's right. Right. You gotta shave you gotta shave that cower caterpillar. What are

Mark Odland:

you trying to hide?

Zack Carter:

What are trying

Mark Odland:

to hide under that mustache?

Zack Carter:

Yeah. No. I love it. You yeah. I you're on it, man.

Zack Carter:

Alright. Yeah. I don't I can't add much because all the other stuff that you said is just so good. So I I I'm a I'm a let it sit. I'm a let it sit.

Zack Carter:

Let's get to the next clip because I'll be interested in seeing you're gonna get a big smile on your face. You'll be like, nailed it. It's it's easy to see how how she responds. Damn. Alright.

Zack Carter:

So here we go. Let's get to clip number two of Ted Last. Hello, Ted. I thought you'd be back. Alright, sir.

Zack Carter:

What do you think about clip two?

Mark Odland:

Yeah, it was good. Yeah. I mean, she, the therapist did a really nice job of just, staying cool, but also not pretending like nothing happened. Right? And also bringing her as therapists we're trained, as counselors, we're trained not to make it about us, but strategically every now and then, we let a little leak out.

Mark Odland:

Right? We let them know we're a real person. We're a human being. And this is even though it's a professional relationship, it is a relationship. Right?

Mark Odland:

And she gave him a kind of a a little compliment by recognizing that he doesn't quit. So that was kind of like a little hidden compliment in there. She took a risk by assuming he was scared and naming that. It was a strategic risk, but he I don't know. It's kinda like he's testing her too.

Mark Odland:

Right? He's like, can can she handle me? Can she take it? And it seems like she's starting to pass the test. And so even that playful, like, throwing the tissue box at at the end is just like him being like the naughty boy who's just like, hey, by the way, you can't totally control me.

Mark Odland:

Let's just be clear. This is still, like we're gonna still, like, navigate this thing together and negotiate how this goes. Mhmm. But I think with her thing about the fight or flight and the fear, he didn't get super defensive because deep down, maybe there's a part of him that knows, yeah, maybe maybe there's part of her part of this that's right. Maybe maybe she's onto something.

Mark Odland:

And if I can trust her to actually speak the truth, then maybe I can trust her to slowly open up a little bit. I mean, I don't know if you will. I haven't seen the next clip. But those are those are my those are my initial thoughts, Zach.

Zack Carter:

Those are great thoughts. So as far as confronting clients, like, as therapists, can we do that? We're like, hey, I mean, you said you she let a little bit of vulnerability out like, hey, that can hurt my feelings, actually. You can't hurt me. I'm not a robot.

Zack Carter:

And so but do you find it appropriate to confront clients in the way that she did?

Mark Odland:

If needed. I mean, if needed, I think. And I'd be curious. I mean, if you interviewed this character, the therapist later, you know, if there's another scene where a colleague was like, well, why did why did you confront him? Maybe she would say, well, I truly was offended.

Mark Odland:

I needed to stand up for myself. Or maybe she would say, oh, I can take that all day. I I I wasn't offended, but I needed him to know that I could play his game and that I wasn't a doormat. And I had to establish a baseline of Mhmm. Equality in some in some ways of for him to kinda respect respect me Mhmm.

Mark Odland:

That I can dish it out too. Because if there's a basic reason I mean, it's kinda like she had to, like, enter I mean, Chavez, she's a female. She kinda had to play the masculine game of, like, two guys can beat each other up on the playground or on the field and then become best friends afterwards because they got it out of their system, and there's, a mutual respect afterwards. And so I don't know if that's what she's doing, but, like, she had to kinda enter his world a little bit. Yeah, for sure.

Zack Carter:

Yeah. You know, I've had occasionally I'll have to, like, confront clients about stuff. And like you said, it is like picking your battles, just kind of like in everyday life, like you don't want to. Be nitpicky about everything anyone ever offends you. Okay, so sometimes you let stuff go.

Zack Carter:

But yeah, like you said, I think there there was an elephant in the room, and if she pretended like it didn't happen, that there would be this like weirdness for a while. And so it's like, hey, let's just get this over with and just say like, dude, you were being offensive. And like, I'm gonna respect you respect me and my job. And so, yeah, I thought that was Yeah. I thought that was good.

Zack Carter:

Do you think self care is scary?

Mark Odland:

You know? I don't know if I'd frame it quite like like that, but if she's framing self care as part of the process of kind of dealing with your own demons, dealing with your past, dealing with your emotions, dealing with your relationships. Yeah. I think it is. I think, and then I think we see that with our clients a lot of times.

Mark Odland:

It's cause cause sometimes it's for guys, especially the successful guys we work with. It's like an area of your life. One of the few areas of your life where you haven't found total success or you don't feel competent. It feels like uncharted waters. And so the unknown can be scary.

Mark Odland:

But to their to their credit, the guys we work with have taken that step. They're like, you know, hopefully it's preventative and not a crisis moment. But one way or another, found their themselves to, you know, working with us. And yeah. So that's

Zack Carter:

Well, so does the truth set you free, but first it pisses you off?

Mark Odland:

Did Jesus say that? I think it was from the one of the gospels.

Zack Carter:

I think so. It's in the red letters, for sure. Was like, Jesus had pissed.

Mark Odland:

He definitely said the first part. The truth will set you free, but the truth can be very painful. I mean, I that that's one thing I've I've found is that the truth can be very painful for people, but it's better to face the truth. If you can come out on the other side, you're two people typically are better for it than just living in the shadows, living in denial, kicking the can down the road, just staying busy, avoiding it, medicating it, scrolling, you know, addiction. That that's the alternative to dealing with the truth.

Mark Odland:

Right?

Zack Carter:

I mean, that's pretty that's pretty close. Alright, sir. I've got your last clip for you. Let's see we'll see what you think. What did you love about him?

Zack Carter:

Why? Feel a good day. I'll be a new

Mark Odland:

Wow. Well, it's

Zack Carter:

like you nailed all of it. Every single clip, you called it ahead of time. Like, I think he's going through something.

Mark Odland:

Yeah. Gosh. You know, that, yeah, that almost got me choked up a little bit watching that. That was a good scene. You know?

Mark Odland:

And I think I see that a lot with the EMDR work I do with guys digging deep. And his fear going in was, oh, you're just gonna blame it all my parents, throw them under the bus, you know, all this stuff. And people are genuinely afraid of that. But again, the truth really is key here because what people find when they, when they dig in to some of these old hurts is it's not just the hurts. There's good.

Mark Odland:

Right. And hurt. She asked a very strategic question, By saying, what's something good. Because I'm guessing there's more context. There's more hard hard things that happened.

Mark Odland:

Right? Like, wasn't he worked a lot. He wasn't always there. But that moment represented the, like, the true heart that he had for his kid. And in that moment, you know, Ted could connect to the love that his dad truly had for him.

Mark Odland:

And that the new the you know, it being in that moment experientially allowed him to feel at a deeper layer, you know, level, not just in his head, but in his heart. This is how dad really felt about me all the time. That was just masked by these other things that got in the way. That's very different than here's all the evidence for why dad didn't love me, and that's what I'm gonna carry with me. That's a story I'm gonna tell myself the rest of my life.

Mark Odland:

Right? For him to say he was a good dad. Right? And I think as men, like, we have complex relationships with our dads, and it's really important for us to to deal with those relationships and to see the things that we'd like to change, do differently than our dads did, but also to, like, be honest enough to to to see the good and and to see, you know, the the love that that our dad showed us too. Right?

Mark Odland:

So then the hug, I bet you're gonna ask about the hug at the end. Was it legal?

Zack Carter:

I was I was gonna say, unfortunately, Ted, it is illegal. That's my response. I'm gonna touch her.

Mark Odland:

Well, I think, Zach, you're only doing online counseling at this point, so I don't know if

Zack Carter:

you do do you do virtual helps with people? It's not a problem. Why do you think I only do online? Oh, hey, Brad. Don't touch me.

Zack Carter:

Oh, man.

Mark Odland:

Yeah. That was that was good. I mean, apparently, this therapist got him to a point where he could open up. And and maybe some guys are listening to say, oh, man. Why why is he crying?

Mark Odland:

That's so so stereotypical therapist. They're gonna make you cry. Whatever. We're all human. And let's be honest, for a lot of us, we don't wanna cry in front of our our kids and maybe in front of our wife, but not as not that often because we wanna you know, we feel pressure to be that strong protector and provider and, like, the steady person in the storm who's gonna, like, pilot the ship through the storm.

Mark Odland:

Right? And our wives tell us they want us to open up, but each relationship is different about how how well that goes. And so to have a neutral place with a counselor or a therapist where you can just be totally real, it's a good thing. It's a release valve. Right?

Mark Odland:

And it's a place to gain truth and insight and healing. So, yeah, I don't know.

Zack Carter:

How do you think she did? Overall grade zero to 10.

Mark Odland:

Well, I mean, they were pretty brief clips, so I don't know if I

Zack Carter:

They were. They're very brief.

Mark Odland:

I don't know. I I I give her a solid solid seven seven eight. Solid seven. Yeah. It's 7.5.

Mark Odland:

7.5. The hug is a different category. That's another session. We could talk about that. But as as far as the therapy itself, yeah.

Mark Odland:

Pretty good. Pretty minimalistic, but I I think the wheels are turning behind the scenes, and she's being strategic about how to kinda crack the code with with him. That's what we do too. Right?

Zack Carter:

That's right. Yes. And, yes, we will charge for house calls.

Mark Odland:

For sure.

Zack Carter:

For sure. For sure. There's no there's no surety here.

Mark Odland:

God god gives grace, and it's it's undeserved, unmerited love. We give a valuable service that does have a cost. And but that's that's that's what we do in a, you know, it's a professional and consensual relationship, right, where we're both exchanging something that's a value to each other. That's that's how this thing works. Right?

Mark Odland:

So

Zack Carter:

Yes. Perfect. Well, I hope you like the clips. Everybody, thanks for joining us. Mark, do you wanna just send us off?

Mark Odland:

Well, yeah. I mean, if you're actually watching this long, which we we always appreciate when when you guys do that. And if you're enjoying the content, you might as well subscribe. You're already here. Hit that like.

Mark Odland:

Throw in a comment what you think. Did we miss something? We love to respond to those comments. And if you're like, wow. I watched Ted.

Mark Odland:

I think because of Ted doing that in this clip, I think I'm gonna get therapy or counseling. Joking aside, I think we I think we all need it, especially as guys with the pressures that we carry. So if you're interested in testing the waters with me or Zach, check out escapethecagenow.com, and we'd be happy to set up a a a brief phone call or Zoom call or or just go for it. Get that first intake scheduled and and hit the ground running. So, thanks, Zach.

Mark Odland:

Until next time, guys. Thanks for listening. Alright. Bye, everybody. Bye.