Therapy is out of fashion and almost off the air. Tony isn't discussing his dreams on 'The Sopranos' anymore. 'Huff,' a Showtime shrink played by Hank Azaria, is long gone, and 'Head Case,' a send-up of psychiatry on Starz, was also canceled. HBO shut down 'Tell Me You Love Me' after one season. All of Toni Collette's multiple personalities in 'United States of Tara' are on hiatus until next year. Neurotics and sociopaths are still rampant, of course, from a serial killer on 'Dexter' to a teacher turned drug kingpin on 'Breaking Bad,' but for the most part television characters carry on without counseling or medication. Except on 'In Treatment.' Monday's season premiere on HBO picks up Paul Weston, the moody therapist played by Gabriel Byrne, pretty much where he was left off: fragile, chastened, but still in the business of healing. This is the third season, and the first that relies on original scripts instead of adaptations of episodes from the hit Israeli series 'Be' Tipul.' The first seasons were faithful adaptations, and, remarkably, it took only a few minor adjustments to transpose the psychic pain in Tel Aviv to Maryland and Brooklyn. When it began, the American version was praised for not seeming like a knockoff of the Israeli series. Now it's a compliment to say that Season 3 does: Paul's relationships with his new patients are as finely etched as before. The writing may seem a little less sophisticated -- each session offers incremental insights about the patient that can seem a bit pat or forced -- but overall 'In Treatment' is still an absorbing dramatization of psychotherapy. The show was structured as a series of weeks in the life of a therapist; each half-hour episode featured patient sessions with Paul, and the last of the week was Paul's session with his own mentor and therapist, Gina (Dianne Wiest). In her presence Paul dropped his wise, benign veneer and quickly turned as defensive and querulous as his patients. The format put the viewer in the somewhat godly position of psychiatric supervisor, observing as doctor and patient bandied words across layers of discontent and self-delusion. It was intense, claustrophobic and oddly gripping, each episode a whodunit in which the clues are repression, transference and counter-transference. This season viewers are privy to fewer patients. Sunil (Irrfan Kahn), a Bengali professor, is a depressed widower living with his son and American daughter-in-law. Jesse (Dane DeHaan) is an adopted gay teenager struggling with all sorts of crises, including the discovery of his birth mother. And in a rare television role, Debra Winger plays Frances, a former movie star having trouble with her lines, her age and her family. Paul has stopped seeing Gina, who retired and wrote a well-received novel. Paul views one character in Gina's book as a thinly veiled version of himself and all his personal and professional inadequacies. That brings him to the waiting room of Adele (Amy Ryan), a younger, less experienced therapist. The show's producers recruited the novelist Jhumpa Lahiri ('The Namesake') as a cultural consultant for Sunil's story line, and whatever the reason, he is the most interesting patient. It helps that Kahn, who played the father in the film version of 'The Namesake,' is deft and compelling in the role of a grieving Indian emigre struggling to retain his dignity in an alien culture. Sunil is brought to Paul's office by his son Arun (Samrat Chakrabarti) and Arun's wife, Julia (Sonya Walger). Julia, an attractive, brittle literary agent, finds her father-in-law's withdrawal hostile and unnerving. Sunil refuses at first to speak to her or Paul directly; instead he responds in Bengali and relies on Arun to translate. Once his minders leave the room, Paul puts Sunil at ease, and the patient begins to reveal glimpses of his isolation and alienation in American society, not without wry humor. 'She named her daughter after a company that makes bottled water, Naya,' Sunil says of Julia. 'Perhaps the next child will be called iPod.' DeHaan is equally persuasive as Jesse, the gay teenager with a quicksilver temper and charm that just barely conceals his insecurities and rage at his adopted parents and the birth mother he hasn't met. Oddly, it is Winger who has the hardest time with a role that seems tailor made, namely as a former movie star trying to make a comeback. Frances comes to see Paul because she finds herself forgetting her lines in a revival of 'The Night of the Iguana,' and it soon becomes evident that there are deep-rooted reasons for her sudden memory lapses. Frances, like most patients, is a liar, armored in defenses and self-delusion. Actors live a lie for a living, which adds an extra layer of falsity. Perhaps because Winger's strength as a performer was baring the inner truth of her characters in movies like 'Terms of Endearment' and 'Rachel Getting Married,' she seems uncomfortable with Frances' facility for deceit. Resistance is an inevitable part of psychotherapy, but in this case it seems more like the actress is resisting her role. It doesn't matter. 'In Treatment' is still bracing. Reality television teems with celebrity shrinks like Dr. Phil and Dr. Drew who provide make-believe therapy. 'In Treatment' is fictional, but it carries a stronger whiff of truth. BROADCAST NOTES 'IN TREATMENT' HBO, Monday and Tuesday nights at 9, Eastern and Pacific times; 8, Central time. Directed by Paris Barclay; written by Adam Rapp ('Sunil'), Alison Tatlock ('Frances'), Sarah Treem ('Jesse'), and Anya Epstein and Dan Futterman ('Adele'); Stephen Levinson, Mark Wahlberg, Epstein, Futterman, Barclay and Hagai Levi, executive producers; Noa Tishby, co-executive producer; Eric Overmyer, consulting producer; Treem, supervising producer; Sarah Lum and Mark Baker, producers. Produced by HBO Entertainment. With: Gabriel Byrne (Dr. Paul Weston), Debra Winger (Frances), Irrfan Khan (Sunil), Dane DeHaan (Jesse), Amy Ryan (Adele), Samrat Chakrabarti (Arun) and Sonya Walger (Julia). 