Dr Phil is a piece of shit

Here is his disciplinary file: https://www.scribd.com/document/318570481/Dr-Phil-s-Texas-Disciplinary-File-Full-version-produced-to-LawNewz

Of note that the woman (SJM who is identified by full name in the document and who was 19 years old, Phil was 38-39) is identified as being in a dual relationship. Phil had her as a patient for some time and then brought her on as an intern.

This is grossly unethical and as you can see he was reprimanded by the board, as in this was founded and he was guilty. In later interviews he said the rectification to keep his license forced him to close his practice, as he was required to pay another psychologist to supervise his practice. As someone who runs a private counseling practice I can say this would essentially bankrupt you, the margins aren’t enough for a dead weight staff unless you run a large practice with 12+ people under you (at which point the board would probably take this far more seriously, I assume he was practicing independently).

Fast forward to 2006: Dr Phil surrenders his license. Kind of a strange thing to do. As someone who is licensed even if you never use it it’s almost always worthwhile to keep it active as it’s usually a huge headache to reactivate it whereas keeping it active is just like paying $100-150 a year and taking a few continuing education classes. Especially by 2006 this could all be done online for free; in the 1990s I get it more because CE meant you had to give up a few saturdays and pay even more money. However, people do it.

Fast forward again to 2009: 2 articles come out in the national enquirer. 1 accuses Dr Phil of being regularly unfaithful and abusive to his wife as well as hitting a man over the head with a beer mug, the other is an account from SJM accusing him of sexual assault back during the 1980s charges described above. Dr. Phil sued for defamation with 250 million dollars sought, which he eventually dropped. Most references to sexual assault article have been scrubbed but some remain and the original articles are gone. The original article on radar was widely reference when posted though so even 16 years later there are still some articles that basically repost the key points

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dr-phil-sues-national-enquirer-over-spousal-abuse-articles/

https://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/monster-dr-phil-accused-of-molesting-young-patient-32064780.html

Of note: an ethics board now, let alone in 1988, would likely not necessarily investigate sexual assault as that is a criminal manner and difficult to prove. They would likely wait for the outcome of a criminal investigation and move forward based on that unless there was evidence the criminal process was somehow compromised or something. This also is dependent on whether SJM disclosed the abuse in 1988. While it is clear from the file that SJM filed the initial complaint it is unknown to the extent of which her report was detailed. She may have been upset and simply disclosed the inappropriate dual business relationship, she may have disclosed the sexual abuse and was ignored. It is unknown

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Even giving Dr Phil the benefit of the doubt and assuming this woman is lying and the reports that he is violent, serial adulterer, etc are false we can still surmise that his practice ability is tainted, at best.

He clearly and willingly entered into a dual relationship with a patient at his suggestion. This is like the biggest ethical thing. It is because of therapists like him that when I was in school 30 years later ethics class was pounding in “dont do dual relationships” for like 2/3rds of the semester, because a ton of the stupid boomers in his generation abused their power and fucked their clients like total scumbags. You cannot be friends with your therapist. Your therapist cannot be impartial. Your therapist has a power differential over you. It is fucked up if your therapist says “let’s hang out”, “come work for me”, or whatever. If you say it and your therapist accepts equally bad!

The timing of surrendering his license is hella sus. His tv show started in 2002 so it’s like I guess he just figured he was finally good without it right? Yeah, maybe, except he hadn’t been in actual clinical practice since like 1990. After the whole SJM issue he went into courtroom consulting which led to a tv show about that which connected him to Oprah which led to the show we all know him for. But this meant he was now a prominent figure, especially a few years into it when it was clear that it was popular and going to stick around. Conjecture: he dropped his license because he feared SJM (or someone else) would pop back up and it would result in a board hearing, which can be public (thus the pdf above). The standards are lower for initiation than criminal charges, especially by 2006. He also may have done this out of fear of being called out for a practice engaged in on his show but this is less likely considering the practice did not occur in the state of Texas (where he was licensed)

His practice style is garbage. Therapy in the 1990s and early 2000s was far more confrontational, breaking you down, and “fixing you” and he was a key player in this fucked up trend. 0 evidence for it because it was based in nothing, it was farmed for spectacle of daytime tv. Your emotions were obstacles to overcome. Send your kids to bootcamp. Look at how weird these people are. This shit is rooted in AA and NA, which is a whole different topic of toxic “tough love” bullshit. He was not alone though - Jerry springer, Montel, sally jesse Raphael, the demon oprah (before the you get a car she was right along with these people), all portrayed dysfunction for theater with a thin veneer of “therapy”. Dr Phil legitimized it because he was the only one with actual credentials, despite surrendering his licensure.

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As a result of all this he legally cannot call himself Dr. Phil, psychologist. This is a frequent point of debate and he is a frequent example. Words like “professional counselor, psychologist, surgeon, lawyer, judge, etc” are protected titles. You can face legal consequences for advertising services if you don’t have the proper credentials to back it up.

But in the modern mental health landscape we have dilemmas here: what about a therapist? A life coach? These are not. They are general. Anyone can call themselves a life coach. There appears to be effort amongst life coaches to formalize the title. To the laymen this is confusing though. Who do you trust? We already added a bunch of new shit in the early 2000s for masters level clinicians: licensed clinical social worker, licensed professional counselor, licensed marriage and family therapist. And these vary by state slightly plus there are some states with extras for trainee versions! It’s a lot to ask a laymen to understand all that when most of my clients don’t know the difference between psychiatrist (md) and psychologist (PhD)

And then you get to the Dr Phil dilemma. He has surrendered his license. Or maybe someone in his case has lost it through malfeasance even, say he did sexually assault that woman in the 80s and the board investigated that. Neither of those things change the fact that he still attended graduate school, completed coursework and dissertation, and was awarded a doctorate. But to the laymen, “Dr.” is the professional identifier. So do you strip him of that? Very controversial! I don’t know. I do know what Dr Phil is doing feels disingenuous though. He is portraying himself as a tv psychologist

In addition, a great deal of the “self-help” sphere is circular, meaning you just keep going from one (sometimes costly) method to the next. It’s not designed to solve your issues but to keep them perpetual.

You finally get the gist of society…it’s doing whatever it takes to force you into a mold, no matter how much it may harm or even kill you.