After Life: 10 Times Tony’s Psychiatrist Was The Absolute Worst

In Ricky Gervais’ After Life, Tony’s psychiatrist (one of the few characters in the show who never actually gets a name) is one of the most deplorable people we see on screen. He is employed to guide Tony through the death of his wife and help Matt through a tough divorce, but all he ends up doing is making things worse through a combination of rudeness, arrogance, and downright incompetence.

Let’s take a look at 10 times that he was the worst character on the show, and possibly one of the worst fictional people of all time.

10 When He Didn’t Pay Any Attention

The main flaw with the psychiatrist persisted through just about every time we saw him on screen.

Whether it was Matt or Tony he was talking to, he spent his time either looking at his feet or around the room or gearing up to interrupt with some semi-related ill-meaning advice that helps no one.

9 When He Called Himself Clever

During one of Tony’s speeches, he made sure the psychiatrist was well aware that he didn’t think everyone in the world was bad, but there were a certain few people who definitely were.

One of those, he made abundantly clear, was the psychiatrist himself. Instead of being insulted by this, he smugly grinned and said, “so I’m clever”, referring back to something Tony had previously said. Now that is some serious self-aggrandization.

8 When He Spoke About Hitler

There are a lot of things wrong with the psychiatrist as a person, but at least he is consistent with the rest of the population in his hatred of Adolf Hitler. However, one of his most graphic rants was a brutal description of exactly what he would do to Hitler if he had the chance.

Matt’s suggestion that he himself speaks to a therapist about his own issues is probably a good one…

7 When He Got Into A Twitter Argument

The pinnacle of his professional negligence was when he got into a Twitter argument mid-session.

Instead of talking to the man paying him to do his job, he ends up in an argument with someone he can’t see or hear and doesn’t know. Someone he knows and can see and hear is sitting opposite asking for his help!

6 When He Said “Just Stop Feeling Sad”

While we might find it hard to sympathize directly with Tony throughout much of season one when he is being intentionally rude to both people that are kind to him and who aren’t, it’s important to remember that he is mourning the loss of his wife the entire time.

If we could “just stop feeling sad” then the psychiatrist wouldn’t have a job, now would he? His advice is incredibly shoddy and pretty much downright offensive. Why Tony has paid for his services for so long is rather baffling.

5 When He Suggested Tony Sleep Around

One of his other quick fixes was, at one point, the suggestion that Tony simply tries sleeping around a bit.

From the way that Tony cries while watching videos of Lisa and him doing the most mundane of things seems to suggest that the sexual element of their relationship doesn’t hit the top ten of things that he misses most about her. As such, sleeping around with women who aren’t his wife really doesn’t seem like it would fix a lot.

4 When Tony Finally Fired Him

Even when Tony finally had enough of the psychiatrist and got rid of him for good, there was no remorse from the psychiatrist. He seemed a little annoyed that he wasn’t going to be paid anymore, but he didn’t apologize for his months of failed service.

He simply came out with an “okay”, before allowing Tony to repeatedly insult him. If it had gotten to the point where he needed to be let go, surely he should have realized what he was doing wasn’t working?

3 When He Said “Don’t Worry About It”

After Tony had managed to get his substandard psychiatrist out of his own life, Matt ended up visiting him. Obviously, he remained just as useless in his abilities.

After listening to Matt talking about how difficult his divorce was, the psychiatrist came back with nothing more than, “don’t worry about it.” It’s pretty much the exact same advice as he gave Tony when trying to convince him to stop being sad.

2 When He Was Overly Sexual

One of the major flaws in his character (and there are many) was his obsession with sex and sexuality. He managed to turn just about any situation on its head to he could brag about his own exploits, or simply talk about the subject.

One of his worst over-sexualization moments came when he bragged about getting home at 4 am from the pub…

1 When He Introduced His Friends In The Pub

Speaking of the pub, his general attitude and demeanor when introducing his friends (and their various nicknames) spoke volumes of his character.

He was willing to shout over everyone else in the pub at the time and make sure that all the attention was firmly on him and his friends. He had very little regard for kindness or the experience of everyone else around him.