Private Practices: The Story of a Sex Surrogate is a 1985 American documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 directed by Kirby Dick

Kirby Dick

Kirby Dick is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor. He is best known for directing documentary films. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature for directing Twist of Faith...

 about the interaction between a sex surrogate and her clients. It is Dick's first documentary film.

Synopsis

Private Practices focuses on sex surrogate Maureen Sullivan and two of her clients. Kipper, a 25-year-old college student, has had little sexual experience with women and seeks help overcoming his shyness. John, a 45-year-old divorcee, believes that his sexual inadequacies are preventing him from finding a new partner. Sullivan works with these men in an attempt to improve their body image, relationship skills, and sexual satisfaction.

The film also shows how these patients interact with their friends, family members, and therapists. Many scenes focus on Sullivan, who discusses her history as a surrogate and describes her own relationship difficulties. In one scene, she and her brother confront their father about his abusive behavior and unwillingness to accept Maureen's career choice.

The filmmakers paid for the patients' therapy in exchange for permission to record their sessions. In order to preserve the therapeutic atmosphere, Dick only allowed a single camera operator to be in the room during each session, and he and the rest of the crew monitored the filming from a remote station in a different room. Furthermore, the film crew does not directly interact with the subjects during therapy, and the subjects rarely comment on the presence of the filmmakers.

A postscript to the film states that John and Kipper have gone on to form more successful relationships, while Sullivan has started dating and reduced her number of patients.

Reception

Private Practices won favorable reviews from critics. The San Francisco Chronicles Edward Guthmann called it "an honest, courageous and sensitive study of human beings in their most vulnerable moments", and Walter Goodman of The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

 described it as a "sympathetic account of a sort of human frailty that is not easy to talk about, much less make a movie about".

The film received awards for Best Documentary at the 1985 USA Film Festival

USA Film Festival

-History:Founded in 1971, the USA Film Festival has presented the world, national and regional premieres of thousands of studio and independent feature films and short experimental, animated, documentary and dramatic films....

 and 1985 Atlanta Film Festival

Atlanta Film Festival

The Atlanta Film Festival is an Academy Award qualifying, international film festival held in Atlanta, Georgia. Started in 1976 and occurring every April, the festival shows a diverse range of independent films, including genre films such as horror and sci-fi...

.