AU Blogspot

                             Image courtesy of storyspinn. 

Recently I was contacted by an associate producer from the Dr. Phil show. Are they seeing if I’d be a good guest? It certainly appears like that’s a possibility. So, in addition to getting some very desperately needed help from Dr. Phil and his team, I may one day soon be able to give my bastion of loyal readers a quasi-insider’s view of the show and its’ process. All I can say is, pray for me, and, for now, enjoy this correspondence, edited, of course, for privacy reasons: (more…)

                          Thanks to Karen Geiger for permission to use this Photo.

I really enjoyed Seth Woolf’s response to Deb’s solid commentary on his previous post. Since we don’t yet have our comments section clearly displayed on this blog, I’ve posted this conversation as an original post for everyone to see and engage. What are your thoughts?

From Deb: 

Dear Sir — I believe you have missed the point of what Dr. Phil has been trying to achieve. As young people, typically all of us do not realize the consequences of actions. I can indicate to you that as a owner of a company, these kind of posting would stop me from hiring an individual, no so much as their right to participate in such activity, but in that the judgment of said individual is not who I want representing my company. In short…it is that simple and professionally said individuals are limiting their options later in life, as they age and realize that childhood was not meant for public display. 

From Seth: 

It is perhaps true that I have “missed the point of what Dr. Phil has been trying to achieve” but, if so, it is because I find his aims pointless. I simply feel the cause and effect of this situation has been confused. If employers look down on such technological behavior and confessionalism, I think it says more about their own bourgeoise biases, and less about the quality of the candidates. More importantly, I would also like to counter your claim that “As young people, typically all of us do not realize the consequences of our actions.” This is a sweeping statement about young people, one which I do not follow. For one, I don’t see “young people” as a definable, homogeneous group. I’m 22, am I a young person? What about a twelve year old in Auswitz? What about an eighty year old with the mental capacities of a person one tenth his or her age? Is it for individuals to decide, society, or who? Similarly, I don’t see how a person, regardless of age, could realize all the consequences of his or her actions. Everyone, again regardless of age, must simply act with what information they have at a given moment. (more…)

 
                  Thanks to Li Evans for permission to use this Photo.

A recent Dr. Phil episode was all about women posting “inappropriate” pictures of themselves (i.e. sexually provocative or evincing extensive drinking or illicit drug use) on facebook and myspace. Even more than usual, today’s episode exhibited Dr. Phil’s proclivity toward using sweeping generalizations and blatant logical fallacies as the foundation of his analyses, which might better be characterized as arguments, if not Philicies.

The good doctor was especially fond of:

Ad Hominem: “Okay, but you drink and you’re seventeen!”

Appeals to tradition: “You think most people see this as liberating?”

False dilemmas:  ”These girls either don’t know what they’re doing, or are making stupid decisions.”

Guilt by association: “You don’t post the pictures, but you do run the facebook group!”

Slippery slope: “You’re not gonna be able to get into any colleges, or get any jobs!”

Biased sampling: “So, you went into a coma after hitting your head from drinking?”

The straw man: “I don’t look at these pictures and see Susan B. Anthony.”

Beyond these simple, generally theory-less critiques, there are also deep, philosophically disturbing problems with Dr. Phil’s contentions. First of all, there is a large thematic and circumstantial problem with Phil’s approach. For one, though occasionally advised guests and viewers to refrain from participating in wild, compromising behavior, his focus was much more on simply restraining oneself from posting pictures of such behavior on popular internet forums. As such, his argument is not, in fact, about ethics, aesthetics, or everyday behavior as such, but rather the mouthings of a tragically unhip Luddite. A Marxist analysis of this strange parsing is very elucidating. If an individual of relatively simple means and power posts such a revealing picture or written omission, it is quite damaging to job prospects, the social order, and even the rituals of courtship. If, one the other, a major corporation or commercial power (i.e. Harpo productions, CBS, etc.) reveals selective information or negatively portrays someone it is not only said to be permissible, it is in fact lauded as being beneficial.

Consider this simple hypothetical: you are an employer combing through candidates to fill a position in your company. You have settled on two candidates. The first, Ms. A, had a strong interview, resume, and references, but she has a picture on facebook of her clearly intoxicated, and vomiting. The second, Mr. B, also had a strong interview, resume, and references, and though he has no facebook account, he did appear on the Dr. Phil show in an episode that focused on spousal abuse. If you had to choose one of these two candidates, you would probably choose Ms. A. Similarly, one could imagine a website where users can communicate with others, view pictures and even movies of dubious social behavior, and learn potentially sensitive information about a variety of people. Is this website facebook or myspace? Yes, quite possibly. On the other hand, it might just as easily be Dr. Phil’s website. (more…)

           Thanks to Stephan Gellert for permission to use this Photo.

A recent and already infamous episode of Dr. Phil showed that, even with the ongoing writers’ strike, fiction and humor are far from extinct on the airwaves. This episode focused on Wade, who was brought to the Phil by Michelle, his wife. She had recently started to suspect that her husband was a compulsive liar and, as per usual, cheating on her. The standard schema of accusations, phil plashbacks, yelling, lie detector results, crying, and excuses resulted. No big surprises, until the last 5 minutes or so, where we learned that the next episode (today’s) would reveal how Wade admits not only to a long list of affairs and marital transgressions, but also multiple rapes and murders.

Apparently, after the show, when heading back to Iowa (to get their divorce) Wade told Michelle that he had vague memories of raping his ex-wife and a co-worker, as well as a time where he picked up a hitchhiker who refused to have sexual intercourse, leading him to a violent outrage, murdering and dumping the woman’s body on the side of the road. Adding to the intrigue, the audience learns of restraining orders, fruitless FBI investigations, death threats, stalkings, and suicide attempts from basically all the parties involved except Phil. While adding a certain dimension of excitement, and, perhaps most importantly, providing reason to extend the show for 2 more days, it’s also extremely unbelievable. After all, as Dr. Phil actually made clear on the first show, Wade is a compulsive liar, fibbing about little inconsequential things and distorting big, important matters. (more…)

 
        Thanks to Miles Vialpando for permission to use this Photo.

Today’s Dr. Phil show dealt with eating disorder, primarily anorexia and bulimia. I had expected it to be a particularly telling episode, especially from the previews, which showed Phil staring down an emaciated girl with the words “you are going to die…soon!” In fact, McGraw was far more reasonable and reasoned than normal. He went out of his way several times to say “it’s not as easy as saying: start eating,” and he did make several salient points.

(more…)

                    Thanks to radioboy for permission to use this Photo. 

Last Friday, Dr. Phil appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, right after “stupid pet tricks.” Dr. Phil is actually a fairly frequent guest on the Late Show, which is particularly surprising since, especially in the past, he has been the subject of considerable ridicule. Recently, when it comes to McGraw, Dave seems to have shifted his comedic technique from open mockery to Socratic irony. Practitioners of Socratic irony take on a faux naïveté to reveal the foolishness and ignorance of the person they question. (more…)

              Thanks to Andrea Alfaro for permission to use this Photo. 

In last Monday’s episode, Dr. Phil brought us back to an episode that first aired 3 or 4 weeks ago. Using the unique medium of the Dr. Phlashback we can refamiliarize ourselves with the episode:

“Ken’s got enough money for fancy cars, cruises, and air hockey machines and I’m on welfare” “Keri makes the kids afraid to come visit and lies to the police” “He hits them” “She’s on drugs” “Well, I’m just gonna sit back and let ya’ll work this out.” (more…)

Today we were treated to another dose of “Dr. Phil Now!” where Dr. Philistine investigated the very current phenomenon of school shootings. Obviously, we shouldn’t belittle the trauma felt by victims of any violence, nor should we condone brutal, inhumane behavior. At the same time, it might be just as wrong to refrain from belittling Dr. Phil, allowing his brutal, inhumane brand of psychology to persist without criticism. This issue touches upon many political ramifications such as gun control, education policy, and the rights and freedoms afforded to individuals (particularly young people). The most interesting fallacy related to school shootings, though, is not overtly political, but rather historical. Dr. Phil repeats an oft reported error so familiar to media reports, expert explications, and uneasy community meetings: these acts of violence are new and anomalous. This is an irrefutable—and perhaps deliberate—distortion of the historical record.

A Columbine survivor and guest added: “one thing got me into college, I thought it didn’t happen there.” Again, this is the historical record being annihilated. Even between the Columbine shooting and the Virginia Tech massacre (which apparently re-opened this victim’s eyes) there were at least 9 shootings on college campuses resulting in 19 deaths and many more injuries. In fact, there are dozens more similar acts of violence going back to at least 1936 where a student at Lehigh University killed himself and his English professor after demanded that his grade be changed. In 1966, for instance, a meticulously planned shooting by a deranged, well-armed shooter took place atop the Tower at the University of Texas which killed 16 and wounded more than 30 more.

In fact, a reasonable (though necessarily morbid) examination of the relevant history shows that almost all the common assumptions are wrong. Some of the most deadly school related killings in modern times don’t even take place in America, but rather as part of broader conflicts in places like Bratunac in Yugoslavia, Stalino in Ukraine, Hue in Vietnam, and Beslen in Russia. As these events also illustrate, such attacks are also often not the result of, as Dr. Phil muses, “heartbroken teenage boys” and “loners” but rather adults (or, more ominously by groups of adults) with deep felt social, political, and personal grudges. Even in America, the deadliest school-related killing was not perpetrated by a depressed, socially awkward adolescent at a modern, suburban campus.

                 Thanks to caribb for permission to use this Photo.

Instead, it was at a rural Bath, Michigan schoolhouse in the year 1927 when a 55 year old school board treasurer and farmer killed 45 students and teachers, injuring 58 more. Disgruntled over his foreclosed farm, difficult family situation, and other townspeople who ignored his fight for lower taxes, the killer used dynamite and combinations of shrapnel to destroy his own home and set of explosions in three locations at the township’s only school. The purpose of recounting these gruesome events is not to glorify them or even compare body counts as part of a dismal contest, but instead to point out that they are not completely new phenomena, nor do they follow (at least with any great regularity) any of the characteristics so meticulously mapped out and emphasized by Dr. Phil. This is quite different from Santayana’s famous claim that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (George Santayana Reason in Common Sense). It is difficult to see how anything can be repeated when it is forgotten, covered up, or unknown to begin with.

There are many conceptions of history. Hegel and Marx posit dialectics where various stages and interactions are thought to lead to progress and eventually a teleological perfection. Others, like Walter Benjamin, read history as a persistent accumulation of chaos and catastropher, with progress coming in the form of the backward-flung angel hurling through the post-lapsarian state (Illuminations). In this sense, it doesn’t really matter whether our age is the pinnacle of human existence or the nadir, or even if our time is not substantially different from anything that has already occurred. What is important is that virtually all reputable sciences, philosophies, and psychological movements (predicated on the idea that past events affect subsequent consciousness) must take account of past events and consider a broader historical context. Otherwise, as Dr. Phil demonstrates, one’s historical perspective mirrors that dangerous relationship where the subject becomes an illogical and introverted, social outsider obsessed with destruction.

Seth Woolf
Creator of Deconstructing Phil
Ashworth University Contributing Blogger 

*Although Mr. Seth Woolf is currently pursuing a law career in Boston, Massachusetts—he may need to change horses in midstream, as he’s already fast becoming an underground legend in the psychology world, not for his theories on Freud or Žižek or even Foucault for that matter, but for his groundbreaking work on the enigma that is Dr. Phil McGraw.  The recently launched blog, Deconstructing Phil, is insightful, funny, disturbing, and always original.  We’re excited to have Seth Woolf as a member of our contributing bloggers’ network and we’d like to thank Seth for the opportunity to share his perspectives with our Ashworth University student community.  All kidding aside, there is a lot to be learned on Deconstructing Phil and we encourage you to visit and tell your friends about Seth’s blog as he continues spiraling out of control into Dr. Phil’s mind.  Thanks Seth!

This Tuesday’s episode of Dr. Phil ushered us into the always unpleasant and fractured confines of the Dr. Phil house, where we met a second pair of newlyweds in dire need of man campification. The Dr. Phil canon is quite large, and it is not immediately clear if he has ever associated himself with Jungian psychology—or any school for that matter. Today, though, a quick look at Jung’s God-image archetype seems fitting.

The problem pair today was mostly Jack and Danielle. Jack was characterized by the entire house (and an unusually surly Dr. Phil) as a “rude” and uncooperative “know-it-all” who is “constantly manipulating” and undermining his wife, the rest of the house’s progress, and—worst of all—the show. Jack, on the other hand, claims that the others are taking advantage of him, lying to him, leaving him utterly confused. Making matters worse, Danielle’s various psychic problems contribute and exaggerate the situation. At first, this may seem like a time to talk about group psychology and the collective unconscious. But, in many ways, it is unclear whether man camp constitutes a true collective.

Anyway, we have darker waters to walk: the archetype of the God-image. Jung speaks of “an archaic God-image that is infinitely far from the conscious idea of God” (The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconsciousness). The individual enlightened by a conscious awareness of the God-image sees, within his own mental and spiritual state, the manifestations of a Godliness that differs significantly from the removed, inhuman, and arcane God of many established theologies. Jung writes that “what one could almost call a systematic blindness is simply he effect of the prejudice that God is outside man” (Psychology and Religion). What is this “important and influential archetype” doing, resurrected here on the Dr. Phil show (Ibid.)? For most of the guests, very little.

           Thanks to Cody Dematteis for permission to use this Photo.

Only Jack seems to have any conscious comprehension of his own power—even if it is, all too often, manifested malevolently. Danielle is the prime example of an individual with no sense of his or her own mental and spiritual agency or value. She overtly projects not only her scapegoat desires onto others (mainly her husband), but she also imbues external forces with all the power to control her reality, destiny, and perceptions. Even if her husband immediately stopped being abusive, where would she turn? Not into herself. Deep within her lies a terrible secrets that “not even [her] parents know” and which would “ruin [her] life if it got out.” This secret seems to be preventing what Jung might call the necessary development of a interior God-image for a healthy psychic state. More insidiously, it seems that the very lack of this God-image is what causes the secret to be so powerful and threatening. It has no power over Jack—or Dr. Phil, the God-image extraordinaire.

He tells Danielle that, for Jack, it’s “all about controlling you.” That’s a serious no-no, since Dr. Phil wants to control everyone in his house, with Godlike omnipotence and authority. The end of the show is ambiguous in that it is unclear whether Dr. Phil has actually killed Jack’s God-imagined gusto and ego-centricism. This reveals a very important fact about the God-image. Individuals with a well developed God-image archetype may have great control over themselves, and in some cases considerable powers over those who still hold fast to the exterior image of God, but they have little binding authority over others who feel the God-image within themselves. To take it to the degree of blasphemy, one might think that Christ could ordain himself easily, were he the only one around at the time who saw Godliness within himself. When two people feel so ordained, however, as Phil and Jack both do, of course a battle between good and evil will ensue. Jung’s answer is very different from Phil’s though.

In Jung’s words “it is the prime task of all education (of adults) to convey the archetype of the God-image, or its emanations and effects, to the conscious mind” whereas in Dr. Phil’s words “you need to listen to my advice” and stop being such a manipulative little know-it-all when “you’re not the smartest guy in the room…not by a long shot” (The Religious and Psychological Problems of Alchemy). Is that evil, good, or just God-image talking?

Seth Woolf
Creator of Deconstructing Phil
Ashworth University Contributing Blogger 

*Although Mr. Seth Woolf is currently pursuing a law career in Boston, Massachusetts—he may need to change horses in midstream, as he’s already fast becoming an underground legend in the psychology world, not for his theories on Freud or Žižek or even Foucault for that matter, but for his groundbreaking work on the enigma that is Dr. Phil McGraw.  The recently launched blog, Deconstructing Phil, is insightful, funny, disturbing, and always original.  We’re excited to have Seth Woolf as a member of our contributing bloggers’ network and we’d like to thank Seth for the opportunity to share his perspectives with our Ashworth University student community.  All kidding aside, there is a lot to be learned on Deconstructing Phil and we encourage you to visit and tell your friends about Seth’s blog as he continues spiraling out of control into Dr. Phil’s mind.  Thanks Seth!