all for the game backlog post: betsy dobson

orignally posted on tumblr as a response to someone else (their part of the post not included) here on Dec 26th, 2025

was gonna try to keep this confined to the tags but then i had a lot to say so i'm taking it out of the tags and yapping on the post itself. anyway

it's not just implied that Betsy and Andrew text outside of their therapy sessions, Andrew confirms it himself in TRK. she sends him a picture of herself in her halloween costume and when Neil asks about why she's texting him, Andrew says "she does that sometimes." not to mention, while it's been a decade since i read the extra content (of what was out at the time), i distinctly remember that Nora says Betsy is like Andrew's mother figure. that's an INSANE breach of contract. therapists are supposed to maintain a professional disconnect from their patients. if you're a psychologist or psychiatrist and you're treating your patient like you would someone in your personal life, you are crossing a dangerous line. there's a reason mental health professionals are not allowed to treat anyone they know personally. it allows for too much bias. Andrew might trust her more than any other therapist he's ever had, but that's likely because she's so unprofessional about how she interacts with him

on top of that, it's concerning that in TKM when Neil and Aaron go to their semesterly one on one sessions, Aaron tells Neil that Betsy has given up on asking him things because he's never said a word to her. i'm not a mental health professional so i don't know the protocol for if a patient refuses to talk but i know enough about how therapy works to say that she shouldn't just give up on him. she should be trying to find other ways to make him feel comfortable opening up to her (and in a professional way, not the way she seems to have done with Andrew where she threw the idea of keeping her personal life separate out the window). also like… until he starts going with Andrew, he only sees her when he has to. since it's only his second year in the books, that means when he goes in TKM, that's only his fourth meeting with her. she gave up on him that fast? less than four sessions? fucking really? what the hell?

she also shouldn't have let him barge his way into Andrew's session. if Andrew didn't agree to it, Aaron can't be there and she's supposed to enforce that. i'm pretty sure it's a HIPAA violation that she allowed it

and going into thoughts of mine that aren't entirely supported by canon but would make sense (at least imo) if you added it to canon, i'd personally assume that the reason they're required to meet with her once a semester is similar to why they meet with Abby for check-ups: to assess if they're fit to play. if Aaron's not giving her anything to work with, not even lies like Neil gives her, then she can't do that. in that case, i'd think the school wouldn't let her sign off on him if he doesn't talk at all, which would mean he would need to see her until he's ready to give her something to work with so she can clear him. but he only sees her once a semester, which means she just says he's fit to play without trying to get him to talk to her

that's all i've got so TL;DR, Betsy Dobson is INSANELY unprofessional and is all around a bad therapist because of it

original tags on the reblog:

#im calling her betsy because i dont like her enough to call her bee #shes 100% my most hated character #neil dodged a bullet by not trusting her

additional thoughts on a reblog responding to someone (their response not included):

EXACTLY!!! honestly i think that the fact she's so lenient with Andrew is actively harmful to not only him but also all the foxes and anyone else he meets because she's not calling him out on his behaviors. and i really don't believe that she's any help at all with his and Aaron's sessions; that's only working (and we really only see what they talk about in the rainbow crate chapter so how do we even know it is?) because of Aaron putting in the effort to reach out to Andrew