These days, when it comes to mental health, there’s little stigma attached to seeing a therapist. From Lori Gottlieb’s memoir “Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed” to unapologetic small talk (“Do you have a good therapist you could recommend?”), in-person or video visits with psychologists, psychiatrists or clinical social workers are the norm.
For another kind of relief, there’s “My Therapist Knows Your Name,” a Los Angeles standup comedy event hosted by Chris Paul and Matthew Coe coming to BuzzWorks in San Francisco in a sold-out show on Saturday with Bay Area comics Clara Becker, Denise Lee, Avery Harmon and Brett Harper Jennings.
“It’s been a lot of fun. And now we’ve kind of gotten to the point that we’ve found an audience here in L.A., so we’re excited to go somewhere else and look at other cities. We’re super excited to go to San Francisco and to bring [the show] to a fresh new crowd and in a new space also,” says Paul.
The show’s description online says, “Come laugh with us as we sort through the things we should probably be talking about in therapy instead of using for standup material. But hey, life is short and copays are expensive.”
Paul came up with the idea for “Ask the Therapist,” a show feature in which audience members write their answers to a therapy-leaning question on slips of paper, which are put into a bucket, then shared.
“We do crowd work and talk to the crowd about their answers. So that’s kind of more where therapy quote-unquote comes in,” says Coe, who says the question at the last show was “What’s something random that reminds you of your ex?”
One “My Therapist Knows Your Name” Instagram post says, “The American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy announced [that] seeing these comics will cure your anxiety. Don’t look that up. Trust us,” as Coe and Paul home in on mental health benefits of comedy and attending their show.
But as far as the content of comics’ sets go, any material and topics are welcome.
“We tell the comics to do whatever they want. We’ve had comics mention, ‘Oh, I want to do all my material about mental health and therapy.’ I think that’s really exciting, and we love that, but we don’t ask them to by any means,” says Coe, who grew up in the Bay Area and worked with Becker, a San Francisco comic, to create this weekend’s lineup.
Jennings, who grew up in Marin and lives in San Francisco, is a Harvard University graduate and former member of the school’s Stand-up Comic Society; she joined the group after not getting on an improv team.
“With standup, you have so much more autonomy because you’re just up there alone, figuring it out and reading the crowd. It’s very fun,” she says.
Describing standup as a type of exposure therapy, she adds, ““I don’t want to be afraid of things, and so I was like, ‘I should just do things I’m scared of.’ And then I ended up really liking it.”
With credits including gigs at Cheaper Than Therapy, Punch Line, Cobb’s, San Jose Improv and the Alameda Comedy Club, she says, “There are also a lot of bar shows that I do more regularly.”
In addition to co-hosting the weekly Apple podcast “30 Dates in 30 Days” with fellow comedian Natasha Vinik, Jennings will appear Nov. 22 at Cobb’s Comedy Showcase on a bill of Bay Area up-and-comers.
Her set at BuzzWorks for “My Therapist” will cover dating and poke fun at circumstances and people, including herself, to push through feelings of fear and embarrassment.
She says, “I like being in high pressure situations. And [comedy’s] a good way to work through issues by just kind of making fun of them. “
‘My Therapist Knows Your Name” is at 7 p.m. Nov. 11 at BuzzWorks, 65 11th St., San Francisco. For details, go to @mytherapistknowsyourname on Instagram.