Dr Phil
You need to login for this page
Dr Phil Vs. Irving: A New Therapeutic Approach?!
Wednesday, 09 June 2004
I don't normally stay home and watch Dr Phil. Maybe it's because I didn't know what I was missing, or that I'm expected to be at work most days practicing to be a shrink. Anyway, last week I found myself home with a viral illness that prevented me from leaving the couch, turned my brain to mush, and all of a sudden, Dr Phil became my new hero of therapy.
Dr Phil (that's PhD, not MD) is a loud Texan who gets people onto his show who are desperate for help. Millions of viewers tune in around the world (well I know they do in America, and I saw an ad when I was in Christchurch) as they think they can learn from his wise reasoning. He started as a regular guest on the Oprah Winfrey show, and as Ms Oprah is without doubt one of the most powerful women in America today, he's been endorsed as a modern day guru of emotional problems.
Dr Phil employs a standard therapeutic approach to all his guests; from the lonely housewife who can't please her husband sexually, to the mother with a delinquent daughter, to the family that has a debt, which rivals that of the western world. The approach is simple and consists of three steps;
1. Tell them what they are doing wrong. Tell them it's not their fault, lots of people do it wrong too (hence the audience feels he is relating to them). Use wild hand movements and a loud voice that implies the guests are deaf. Point a lot at the "not wrong' members of the group so they become completely confused as to their level of blame.
2. Tell them what to do right. Make it real simple. Use actors to re-enact scenes if needed.
3. Recommend the correct book from Dr Phil's publishing Mecca, and tell the family to buy it on the way home from the studio.
Hence we can see that Dr Phil is using a new type of therapeutic approach, one that we have not been trained for. It's called "Insult Therapy.' Or in other words, tell them what to do as they are too dumb to work it out for themselves.
Now my other hero of therapy, Dr Irvin Yalom would not be happy with Dr Phil, but I'm only guessing. In his recent book "The Gift of Therapy"Yalom makes the point that the therapist's role is to establish a relationship with the patient characterized by genuineness, positive unconditional regard, and spontaneity. He goes on to state that the therapist must strive to create a new therapy for each patientderiving the idea from the work of Carl Jung. In fact Yalom believes that there is currently a crisis in psychotherapy because the therapeutic process has been packaged into a formula, and that this enables inadequately trained therapists to deliver a uniform course of therapy.I don't think Yalom would prescribe to the "tell them what to do' approach either. Our teaching of psychotherapy embraces the notion that the relationship we have with the patient, the therapeutic process, should facilitate change to occur.
But perhaps the audience doesn't see it that way. And let's face it, millions of people watch Dr Phil. Patients often say they want their doctors to tell them what to do. They go to marriage counselling with the fantasy that the therapist will tell them to separate or individual therapy to hear the therapist state that their own mother is evil and surely to blame for the most recent argument. Many patients shop for umpires rather than therapists, hence the immense popularity of Dr Phil. So if you feel you need to try some insult therapy, perhaps for those patients who come to see you to "tell them what to do' try some of these quotes from Dr Phil's recent TV shows:
Well I had a dream to play for the New York Yankees but that didn't happenafter new bride revealed she had spent $50,000 on a "dream' wedding she couldn't afford
What you have to do is stop worrying would God have given you a beautiful baby only to take it away from you?to a young mother who clearly had post natal depression with panic and agoraphobia. And yes, Dr Phil sometimes little babies do die, and asking the mother whether she had experience of that might have been a good idea.
Well you can stick feathers on a dog but that don't make it a chicken.I have no idea what this means, but I like it.
I understand the traditional therapeutic approach doesn't make good TV, and doesn't work out peoples problems in three minutes, but it is the chosen way for me anyway as I leave my own therapeutic couch, turn off the TV and head back to work.
Dr Helen Schultz