Dr. Phil is Bad, Mm-kay?

Two of this afternoon's appointments have skipped (for unknown reasons, though I'm asking that they be flogged until they actually do decide to meet with me), so I've been surfing the net looking for odd bits and pieces to paste up here. So far, here's the only thing to catch my eye.

Several of my friends who are involved in various forms of counseling - pastoral counselors, ministers, chaplains, psychologists, and therapists - have complained about how Dr. Phil is dumbing down the practice. By offering off the cuff advice that often ends up being rather trite, and making it seem that all problems can be solved in one session (when really years are required for most major issues such as abuse, PTSD, personality disorders, and so forth), he's created this image that those of us who take our counseling work seriously are in it for the money and prestige. Really, he seems to suggest, all that's needed is some good old fashioned advice - the kind you'd get from mom or grandpa while sitting on the back steps of some midwestern farmhouse.

The reality, of therapy and of Dr. Phil, is far more serious.

Let's see. He's been stripped of his license to practice psychology, been investigated again and again, refused to do the work necessary to get back into a legitimate practice, and has interfered in the recovery efforts of celebs in order to get his name in the paper. And now, he's tried to interfere in that case of the teenage girls who beat the tar out of another girl who trash talked online.

Here's the article that appeared on MSN. Maybe sooner or later people will wise up and learn that not everyone who sounds good really is good.