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Today’s Dr. Phil episode (Heroin Addict Nanny or some such) is another rerun worth noting, if only to stress once again, a little louder this time, that our favorite smugmeister is in no way qualified to intervene in any of these people’s lives, this time because he is not a licensed drug and alcohol counselor. The state of California does have a special license for providing chemical dependence counseling. It is called a CADAC, short for Certified Alcohol and Drug Addiction Counselor, and Dr. Phil does not have one. This is in addition to the general license to practice psychiatry, which he also does not have.

What he does have is a smug attitude and a nationally syndicated show, so at the very least we can all flip on channel 3 and learn exactly what NOT to do, should anyone we love actually end up in a position desperate enough to seek help from Dr. Smug. I mean Phil.

Lessons From The Dr. Phil School Of Counseling*

Lesson # 1 - Fail utterly to provide compassion. Every problem in the world can be solved by a quick kick in the ass, so clearly anyone not as perfect as the good doctor is simply lazy. Save compassion for your failed efforts to hit on Jane Fanda (if you don’t get the reference, you need to watch more Kathy Griffin).

Lesson # 2 - Be as threatening as possible. Make several ultimatums in a row, pose questions without pausing to hear the answers, and indicate that you have eyes everywhere. This works particularly well with the paranoid schizophrenics.

Lesson # 3- Be uneducated about the issue except in the most general sense. If you have ever smoked a cigarette, then you are probably qualified to treat a long term heroin addict. Making it up as you go along based only on your personal impression of the greater world around you is the key to helping other people improve their own lives. The lazy sots.

Lesson # 4 - Indicate that you have no intention of believing anything your “guest” says before you have given her or him the chance to talk. This always ensures that people will provide thoughtful, honest answers to your questions.

Lesson # 5 - Make sure to keep the focus on yourself. If you shut your giant tripe filled gob for one moment, you run the risk that your “guest” might have an uninitiated moment of self-perception or greater awareness, and then you could lose control of the interview. Just keep referring to yourself, mention how great you are, and remind everyone that this is your moment in the sun. No one else in that room can thrive on other people’s tragedies like you can!

Let it never be said that Dr. Phil is not a master at something; we’ve already stipulated his prowess in the “smug” field. But only someone who has really, totally failed to dedicate the time and effort necessary to become a competent therapist could manage to illustrate all of these lessons during his first interaction with a new guest:

So, what have you done today? (Pause for dramatic effect.) Be very, very careful. I asked you a question, you better tell me the truth. You don’t know what I know. You. Don’t. Know. What. I. Know. Look, at some point, you’re just gonna have to understand that you’re just gonna’ have to be honest with me, cuz’ the way to tell when you’re lying is if your lips are moving, right? You’ll lie about anything anywhere. I mean that’s part of this addiction. This is a time - if you want a chance to try to live, try and get your life back, you need to tell the truth about everything I ask you. And believe me, I am a human lie detector, and you jack with me and you’ll be gone before you know it. I don’t put up with any of that bull- and you just need to know that from me right. Up. Front. Okay? So you need to think about that when I ask you the question, what have you done today?

Guest: Uh, I’m the camera man.

Splendid. Stupendous. The perfect illustration of how to ensure that someone leaves an hour with you feeling worse about themselves (and the world in general!) than they did before meeting you. The award for doing the absolute, literal least one could possibly do definitely goes to Dr. Phil.

*Candidates licensed to practice either (a) psychiatry or (b) what they preach, will not be accepted.

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INTEGRITY:

I broke down and watched Dr. Phil today, because it has been that kind of week. (I admit it. I’m a smugaholic. I’m not proud.) Whenever I tune in to the king of smug I’m always afraid I might hit on one of those smarmy “giveaway” episodes Oprah made so popular, but lady fortune must have taken pity on me. Today was the second episode of a Special Two Part Series, and everyone knows that when Dr. Phil can’t fit all of his copious amounts of smug into one episode, someone’s goin’ down. Booyah.

I was not disappointed. The good doctor decided to get in between a former high school student who accuses his teacher of molesting him, and the teacher who denies everything, because why not drag this situation out into the spotlight for everyone to share? It becomes clear pretty quickly that whatever happened wasn’t good, but it wasn’t necessarily what the student said had happened, which brought to mind my favorite playwright, Mr. David Mamet. Mamet once wrote a play called Oleanna, a scathingly honest look at the role sexual politics plays in generating conflict which tends to get out of hand. The play itself was written in response to the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill scandal, and the film version, being directed by Mamet, manages to capture the play’s tension on a movie set fairly well. Both versions provide a damning illustration of the way minor, but vital, political differences in communication between the sexes can bring a manageable situation to spiral entirely beyond everyone’s control.

On the other hand, who needs scathing honesty when we have Dr. Phil to sort out it all out for us? (Even if he does need two episodes to do it.) Dr. Phil decided to handle this complicated and emotionally-charged situation by sicking his pet FBI agent (you remember) on the student and raking him across a lie detector test, which indicated deception. Since lie detectors have NEVER let Dr. Phil down, he basically tossed the results into a cage match between the two “guests,” and then spent four whole minutes finishing the show by talking about how much the Dr. Phil show loves teachers and respects teachers and thinks that teachers don’t make enough money (totally relevant) and did I mention how teachers are the greatest thing since god created smug? So clearly, that fixes everything. Now we can all go on about our little smug-free lives. I think I speak for everyone on the show when I say nicely handled, doc. No wonder Oprah keeps you around.

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What? What did ah do?

The good doctor is facing more criticism, this time for bailing a Lakeland, FL teenager out of jail to the tune of $30,000 in return for an “exclusive” appearance on his show. The sixteen year old girl is one of eight teens accused of kidnapping and brutally beating another teenage schoolmate. And when we say accused, we mean she taped the whole episode and posted it. On the internet.

Though the video of the beating has been removed from youtube.com, this video of the incident shown on Bill O’Reilly’s show is still available. It shows portions of the beating, while O’Reilly argues with a defense attorney who actually has no connection whatsoever to the case. (I guess debating an unconnected defense attorney is more palatable than debating the Smug Doctor himself. Can you say “hypocrisy,” Bill?) The video also shows an employee of the Dr. Phil show insisting that he has “exclusivity” and instructing the suspect and her mother not to speak to other reporters.

After news of the bailout made national headlines, the Dr. Phil show released a mea culpa via e-mail, stating “We have helped guests and potential guests in the past when they need financial assistance to come on the show. In this case, certain staff members went beyond our guidelines. These staff members have been spoken to…we have decided not to go forward with the story as our guidelines have been compromised.”

Well, as long as those “staff members” got a good, stiff talking to. Raise your hand if you would rather see a show about how Dr. Phil was locked in the cell with those eight suspects - I mean guests - for a while.

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