Alas, therapy can be really boring. Unless it's on TV, and then it can be crazy, funny, scary, and dramatic.

This Friday, HBO wraps up "In Treatment," the most honest and searing portrait of therapy ever to hit TV. The nine-week nightly series rarely leaves the office of Dr. Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne, pictured) or that of his therapist, Gina (Dianne Wiest), and yet it takes us far into the vivid worlds of each of its troubled characters. Every episode has been crafted like a one-act play - tightly written and seamlessly acted - in which we see truths about the patients surface gradually into consciousness.

-- By Matthew Gilbert, Globe Staff

Boston Globe TV critic Matthew Gilbert has rounded up 14 TV therapists worth remembering. Why 14? Why not? Here's Gilbert's countdown ...