Doctor Phil: Psychology for the masses or charlatan?

The gent's a genius. He talks his folksy, Texas twang and blows a bit of home-spun rubblish up Oprah's kiester (I'd have to check and see if it was when she had the massive, medium, slightly massive or monsterous kiester at the time) to be certain on the amount of air that required. Starts doing regular bits on her show and the women love him. Confident, funny, secure in his own emotions, all of that shemale crap the new-agers look for in a man. His regular gigs get popular so Oprah spins up a new show for him.

Now he's got it. Has his wife walk him down the isle each night, all of that happy trash. Takes that gig and parlays it into a bunch of books too.

All of this banal nonesense and the way folks lap this stuff up.

"Mikey, you should'nt drink a bottle of whiskey after work. When you do that you can't relate to Thelma". All of the dolts in the audience nodding their heads.

Its basically Jerry Springer with better vocabulary. He's a tool, but a rich tool and a genius.

reply to post by dolphinfan

Good points, but nah, Springer makes no bones about the fact that he runs a circus - at least there's some honesty in that.
I hate the way Phil has opposing sides sitting either side of himself the whole time. The whole show is ninety-percent structured around Phil - no panel or anything.
I can't belive Americans reagrd him as liberal. He seems pretty "do-as-I-say" rightwing to me.
In the last show I really felt for this kid who claimed to be trans-sexual. His mom was all for his operation on one side, and on the other sat misplaced and much maligned Christian therapists, who claimed more contact with his dad would cure the kid. It was kinda shocking really, the fact that vulnarable people could be set on each other like that. I couldn't stomach much.
And there, smug and sage-like sits Phil, with nothing to contribute but an ad-break announcement.
Do we ever get feedback on much earlier shows? (And I mean constant feedback, not the odd success story every 5 shows.)

reply to post by halfoldman

I just remembered a MAD Magazine ode to Dr Phil:
Phil:
He spills out swill,
his skill is nil,
he also needs Minoxinil.


[edit on 20-1-2010 by halfoldman]