Hi Portia,
A FAN-atic I am...of some of those HBO shows!
What could be more dysfunctional than trying to hide from death and sex? Therefore HBO is excellent therapy ~ a place where such things are explored instead of ignored.
Six Feet Under - I watched the first season and perhaps part of the second a year ago...gotta catch up on the DVDs (note about us vs. uk channels below). If I recall correctly, another bonus of the show is that it
doesn't take dysfunction too seriously. It is dead serious about life being short and yet
explores the mortal coil (Shakespeare's Hamlet reference there) rather than just try to help us shuffle it off.
I adore another HBO show "Sex in the City" too because it is the tv version of learning "to
love the questions themselves." as some philosopher poet suggested we do (don't remember his name). It is a show that despite its fashionable cover (sex) provides condensed versions of that timeless life process ~ building expectations in life and rebuilding them. In that process we see too that there is function in dysfunction and visa versa and that those terms are just trendy words for what is a life long process of maturation and a generational process of evolution.
Just like real life the characters grow ever so slowly ~ it takes many seasons. 
As I child i remember getting tired of shows in which characters never changed..they were like stuck records and i'd even liked their tune at first. Little did i know that life would require so much change i'd someday feel sentimental about stability now matter how stagnant! These days we have better means to better ends.
About the ends....Nothing like adulthood here in the states to leave one dazed and confused in the glaringly sticky sweet 100% proof Disney land of pre HBO Hollywood. Sitting in foster homes i remember catching a glimpse of some movies where orphans were saved - and i still get pissed off thinking of the time i wasted hoping life would in any way resemble those fairy tales. All that time i could have been acclimating to reality! Thanks to HBO (Shrek, documentaries and inde films too!) I can step into what was once considered the dark side of reality and notice that my vision actually improves as I acclimate and that
shades of gray ARE the bright side. Ah, realism in art is sometimes the best escape from realism in life! Who knew?!
(I got rid of my tv - Ok so it is in the garage but has been for 8 months now). Here in the ole usa (united states of assets
) you get what you pay for as an individual - our collective accounts are often meager or overdrawn.... not apparently as grand as the ones we climb over, through and under one another for....oh don't get me started (too late!). In sum, cable (and it many splendid channels) is expensive and I found myself watching bad tv when i was depressed so now i just rent stuff. I moved to a city i socially like much better, that and this board and the more nurishing HBO have been the perfect social therapy for ending my tv junk food addiction which I didn't even acquire until i was 39 years old. Geography (internal and external, virtual and otherwise) fuels and fixes many dysfuctions i imagine.
P.S. Go to NPR's (National Public Radio) web site
www.npr.org and enter "Six Feet Under" and you'll get 16 interviews with the show's creator, various actors, sound track writer including the following
humorus commentary regarding mental health issues:
All Things Considered audio
Aug. 25, 2003
Commentator Rick Cleveland is a TV writer. Right now he's on the staff of Six Feet Under. Recently, he was asked to appear on a panel to help writers write more effectively about mental health issues. But he says that if there's anything that TV writers know about first hand, it's mental health issues.
http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1407416
