Why I Hate Dr. Phil

(This is an excerpt from my book “Leave the Brother Alone.”)

I hate Dr. Phil.

I have a problem with people who insist, with no invitation, on telling other people what to do in the name of trying to help people, especially when basing their sermons on a false premise attained through mind-numbing ignorance. Of course, the victims of Dr. Phil’s nit-witted lectures choose to either watch his show or, worse, accept the invitation to sit with him on stage so that the nation of viewers can eavesdrop on their embarrassing confessions and the subsequent remedies as offered by the jowly charlatan doctor. Dr. Phil zealots – yes, they are a prowling gang of deranged, bug-eyed, brainwashed zombies – will argue (to the end of time) that “it is the fat-headed blowhard’s job to dispense advice, and the advicees come on the show because they NEED his Texan wisdom coupled with a shot of saliva-spray in their mooning faces. The mustachioed blowhard wants to HELP people – and what’s wrong with that? The obese blowhard is a really nice guy who earns my trust by his folksiness.”

Many believe in love at first sight, but there is also proof of its opposite: hate at first sight. In 2003, I had never heard of Dr. Phil until, one day, I was running on a treadmill at my local gym in Chelmsford, Mass when another member switched the channel on the TV to reveal a human head that was part potato, part flesh-asteroid and part slimy mustache – yes, Jim, meet Dr. Phil. His guests – or prey – were a young couple on the verge of marriage. They were over-weight and looked to be a product of the Midwest as evidenced by their hokey wardrobe, trusting nature and Hair Cuttery-styled coifs – but nice enough people. It seemed as if it had been her idea to drag her fiancée on the show so to get permission to go ahead with the wedding from this guy who was not her father, and in fact was a total stranger. The couple went on record as professing undying love for each other. In the end, though, Dr. Phil ordered the couple to not walk the aisle because the potential bride had “to first learn to love herself before she could learn to love someone else.”

The dude was shocked and angry to have his life upturned in so cavalier a fashion by this pseudo celebrity who had known the couple all of twenty minutes, with most of that time taken up by his own cliché-ridden speeches. The dude argued that, What did it matter that his fiancée had low self-esteem, for he loved the girl and they would work these issues out during a lifetime of marriage? Meanwhile, Dr. Phil ignored his “commonsense” rebuttal because it interfered with his one-size-fits-all approach to psychotherapy, as he kept hammering away at the girl’s crumbling defenses. He was the bullying voice of her god, the Burning Bush to her Midwestern Moses. Soon, in tears, she turned to her boyfriend and broke off the engagement. The dude assumed the disoriented look of anyone who, with a bounce in his step and a whistle on his lips, has walked into an ambush.

I put the word commonsense in quotation marks because I was soon to learn that Phil-ites equated the good Doctor (of philosophy) with commonsense advice. He was the guy who would tell it like it is, and it was said that his talent for bellowing the hard truth had something to do with him being from Texas. To me, the commonsense was that both members of this young couple were not exactly red carpet material in terms of physical beauty, and nor did they possess the wit and sophistication of Voltaire and Emilie du Chatelet, and so there was a good chance that neither of them was ever going to find anyone better with which to share a committed life. What about the idea of love and romance making otherwise fractured people just a little bit more whole? Perhaps it is better to lack some self-esteem and be committed to someone who loves you than to be brimming with self-love and live alone with the full DVD set of the Nora Ephron canon. Now this average couple had been split up by a cult leader that had brainwashed the woman into believing that it was better to forgo at least a smidgen of happiness in this vale of tears we call life in exchange for the utopian promise that she would, in the near future, attain a higher level of personal transcendence by having a torrid love affair with her own reflection.

Thus began my animosity toward this charmless buffoon who went on to build a giant financial empire by gathering a mass of lady followers more devoted to him than Mary Magdalene was to Jesus. My exercise regimen at the local gym was to work out four afternoons a week and end with twenty minutes on the treadmill at a time that now coincided with three lady members (Phil-ites) making sure to blast The Dr. Phil Show so that I became a captive audience. This lasted for three months until I had witnessed enough of this showman dispensing off-the-cuff advice to the saps coming on the set as if they were Islamist making the Pilgrimage to Mecca. Thereafter I changed up my workouts so to avoid these hypnotic cult rallies.

First, let us get past the self-esteem argument. Dick Cheney, Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, Kim Kardashian, Hannibal Lecter, and — why not — Adolph Hitler — all these monsters had or still have an endless supply of self-esteem. Yet none of them were or are capable of loving another person.

We must also dispense once and for all with the notion that Texans hold the monopoly on commonsense. I will even go so far as to say that they are the segment of American society that has the least grip on down-to-earth reality. Rick Perry is a Christian Fundamentalist who the citizens of the Lone Star State voted in as their governor. This makes it safe to say that a majority of Texans believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. Therefore Texans have no commonsense.

We could go on all day recounting Old and New Testament stories that defy all logic, so let us cite the most ridiculous tale to make the editor’s cut: Noah and the Flood. He built an ark that was 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet deep – and then fit into it two members of every species in the world. We shall ignore the commonsense fact that Noah could not have fit all these animals into a single flotilla – that’s too easy to mock — and instead will focus on how he could have, first, identified every known species, and, second, lured them into a Middle Eastern desert. Linnaeus is the father of modern taxonomy (the naming of species) and began his work in 1735. Scientific researchers have since been working around the clock, and around the world, to locate and name new species. Today tens of thousands of biologists are equipped with detailed maps, airplanes to reach out of the way places, and vast computer data bases to keep track of past and recent discoveries. At present, there are 1.2 million identified species, with 15,000 new ones found each year. It is estimated that, in the end, the number could reach 8.5 million animal (not counting insect) species.

Yet a no-nonsense Texan believes that a desert-dweller, who spent day and night hammering together a sophisticated boat capable of accommodating the largest zoo in recorded history, had the time and biological savvy to achieve what armies of trained scientist have not even come close to bringing to fruition. A Texan also lacks the commonsense to wonder how Noah could have traveled to North America, South America, the Caribbean, China, the North and South Pole, Central and South Africa, Madagascar (which possesses 175,000 species not found anywhere else in the world), the South Pacific Islands BEFORE he had built his cargo vessel. The straight-shootin’ Texan will bury his sweaty head in manure rather than come to terms with how two polar bears could have even survived in the Mideast heat, much less made the trek to the awaiting ark; or with how Noah, once he and his global menagerie disembarked on Mount Ararat, was able to transport those 175,000 species back to Madagascar, much less the buffalo back to Kansas, or the Coquimbo Marked Gecko back to Chile.

Suffice it to say, a Texan has no commonsense, no practical wisdom, and should be ignored whenever he or she professes to offer advice.

Now back to the Texan called Dr. Phil and his show that “helps” people using a commonsense approach. There are two things that never made “a lick of sense” to me about the show, and they are 1) How is it possible to meet and talk with someone on a stage for twenty minutes and then have enough information to offer responsible advice? 2) If you, as a guest, really wanted help with your problems, why would you go on national TV to air your innermost demons to a self-involved hack? The simple answer to both questions is that the show is designed as entertainment, to garner ratings in order to sell commercials, and nothing better attracts an American audience than the prospect of public humiliation. Texans love orchestrating a public hanging, and Dr. Phil loves pulling the rope. In the process, he makes another financial windfall, and the shameless guests get their metaphorical necks snapped in a trade for that one blessed chance to get their fifteen minutes of fame before heading back to St. Louis.

Dr. Phil has already rehearsed his answer to me and to the host of other like-minded people who see him as a harbinger for the end of decent civilization, when he repeats, on his show, that he is not offering therapy. Really? Let’s get this straight: People come on stage to air their personal woes, and then he responds by telling them how to fix their problems – and that’s not therapy? That would be like convincing a woman to have sex with you in front of a camera, then posting the footage on the web – and NOT calling it porn. An AP story tells of a Dr. Phil “disclaimer, which was shown for 12 seconds after a recent show, that tells viewers that the opinions expressed are educational and informational, are directed at individual guests, and that viewers who need help should consult a health care professional.” Okay, then why are you advising the patient in front of millions of people? The blunt, Texas-style answer: MONEY.

At the core of this monster named Phil McGraw is a glowing orb of greed, a need to capitalize on every word that issues from his weird-looking mouth. Here is where I commend the good Doctor. It takes a genuine talent to parley every break into another break and then into another break while raking in a pile of cash at each step – that is, to be a first-class hustler/conman on a grand scale. Let’s go to Wikipedia to learn more about Phil McGraw’s ascent to fame and fortune:

Phil McGraw is not all Texan, as he also spent his formative years in Oklahoma and Kansas – then again, it’s all the same wind-swept wasteland full of guys wearing cowboy hats and gals parading around in halter-tops. My favorite factoid is how he won a football scholarship to play middle linebacker at the University of Tulsa where his team lost a game by the score of 100-6. Anyone else devoid of McGraw’s narcissism would have retreated into a lifelong fetal position at having missed that many tackles, but not our boy. He reinvented himself at Midwestern State University in Texas to earn his B.A. in Psychology, a degree that, to me (as a science major), indicates someone who does not want to be bogged down by factual evidence – i.e., a future bullshit artist.

In 1979, McGraw got his PhD in clinical psychology at the University of North Texas – so, yes, he actually does have the title of doctor, contrary to what many of his other detractors may think. Wikipedia notes that he had “run-ins with several faculty members.” Yes, it is usually the case that older assholes were once younger assholes. What is amusing to contemplate is the title of his dissertation, “Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Psychological Intervention.” It suggests that Phil thought he could bully away a medical condition by shouting at an inflamed joint, “What were you thinking?”

The amassing of a fortune began when he and his psychologist dad joined forces with noted impresario and business woman, Thelma Box (a Texan, of course), to operate something called Pathway seminars, which preached the usual rah-rah methods to be a Success, for instance taking control of your own life, yada, yada, yada.  He ended up selling off his Pathways stock for $325,000 while hiding the sale from dad and Box. Then he used Box’s seminar material to write a book under another name, Life Strategies, which became a best seller. In sum, Phil out-hustled a hustler, or, better, one self-help guru promoted himself at the expense of another self-help guru.

Next he attached himself to another high stakes hustler, a lawyer named Gary Dobbs, and together they started a consulting firm called Courtroom Sciences, Inc (yes, CSI) that hired itself out to corporations during legal trials. This, too, became another source of outlandish revenue. More important, the gig was parleyed into the ultimate break when Oprah employed CSI to help her in a lawsuit. Thereafter came his weekly guest appearances as the resident “Relationship and Life Strategy Expert “on Oprah’s show. What did the faculty members that he had run-ins with at the University of North Texas think of their once belligerent foe now claiming to be a specialist on how to get along with people? A year later he came out with the aforementioned plagiarized book, Life Strategies. In 2002, Oprah midwifed The Dr. Phil Show into existence. Now he was famous, which, in America, means that you can spout total bullshit and somehow turn it into cash.

The art of the hustler is to know no shame, to hold a glaring contradiction firm in one’s dark and malleable heart. This was never more apparent than when Phil noted America’s obsession with weight-loss, and then, with a straight face, began instructing his flock on diet and exercise – and this coming from a big, fat slob! And, yes, people bought into it, and, wa-la, into the Dr. Phil coffers poured another multi-million dollar fortune. Phil’s spiritual grandfather, P.T. Barnum, had it right: There’s a sucker born every minute.

Dr. Phil knows how to make money, simple and plain.

(Check out my website: http://www.authorjamesfjohnson.com)

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