When is the best time to do a I hate Dr Phil thread?

I would like to see a pitting of Dr Phil. I cannot stand this guy. I think the pit is too active at the moment to get good replies.
Every single day in our break room the TV is turned on to Dr Phil. I have to eat my lunch away from our break room almost every day to avoid the guy.

Right about now sounds good-moving thread from IMHO to The BBQ Pit.

Ah yes, the cult of Dr. Phil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult. His cult is replete with zealots who hang on every word of their demagogue. It worries me that his homecooked platitudes and attitudes are influencing the next generations. Who watches him? Well I’d suspected that it was merely the shut-ins and stay at home moms . . . but if it’s getting “long shrift” in workplaces too - we’re in big trouble.

How many gauge real life by virtue of what the topic of the day is? Pretty scary, isn’t it?

Back when he was just a guest on Oprah I thought he made some sense once in a while, but since he got his own gig - and especially since he went Hollywood, l can’t take him anymore. He is a total sellout. Have you seen him on his match.com commercials talking about finding “the one who’s been wating for you since the day you were born”? Completely contradicts everything he’s always said about there being no such thing as a soul mate.

For some reason, I decided to turn CNN on last night. Larry King was busy asking some poor traumatized Virginia Tech students whether or not they were going to drop out of school. As I turned away to do something else, I heard him say… “What do YOU think, Dr. Phil?”

So yeah, now’s a great time to pit him, as he inserts himself into the latest tragedy and goes on talk shows to mumble about PTSD. I think we’ll all be plenty sick of him soon.

I just don’t hate the guy. He gets on my nerves with his trying-too-hard-to-be-folksy routine sometimes, but for many of his guests he seems to genuinely care about the outcome of their situation and provides aftercare and treatment options at no charge. I appreciate that he doesn’t turn it off as soon as the cameras turn away.
I understand the repulsion at what appears to be a snake oil salesman spoonfeeding the masses with pop-psychology, but I don’t think of him that way (well, maybe a little or that sentence wouldn’t have come out so easily).
Anyway, when I see Dr. Phil I see a guy that could use other’s people’s suffering for entertainment, and instead uses entertainment media to help other people.
You pick through the advice and take what you want, leave the rest - but that should be true of anyone you get advice from on TV

I pitted him once. Never looked back…

The thing about psychoanalysis is that you can’t fit it into a tidy hour, and you certainly can’t do it on TV. And you certainly don’t help patients by feeding them platitudes that make an audience shout “WOO!” The guy is a dangerous attention whore, and a whole generation is going to get the idea that he is representative of what psychological help is all about.

Pull the plug on the asswipe.

ETA: blinkingblinking, the right time to Pit him is between the hours of 7:00am and 6:59:59am.

You don’t need to call the Pope to treat yourself to a tasty shake.

Has that been adjusted for daylight savings?

What is good about the Philster is his rejection of long involved psychological analysis to solve problems. While it may not be true in all cases ,I see his attitude is fuck all the complications,how do we fix our problems from here , as a good thing.

Which he himself says all the time. It’s easy to remark upon something if you never take the time to acquaint yourself with what you’re criticizing. :rolleyes:

He is educating people to the fact that mental ailments exist, what the behaviours they create are, and how people can be helped. Somebody needs to do it since there’s still far too many people who think depression or anxiety are just personal flaws.

He has plenty of good advice and he does help people. He deals a lot with people who aren’t mentally ill or in need of serious psychological counselling but just need life redirection or to change their thinking on a particular issue and his common sense advice hits home. When he encounters people with more serious problems, he arranges for them to get counselling, which the show usually pays for.

I don’t think he’s perfect, but I think he helps a lot of people and I think that people are finally becoming educated about things psychological by him. People who can’t afford any kind of dealings with a shrink get at least some benefit from him and his freebie advice.

So while it makes you look all cool and smart to bash him, I think you lose sight of the good he’s doing that nobody else is bothering to do.

“You don’t need a bag of wolverines to wax your elbows.” :smiley:

Dang! Another old wives tale dispelled.

For Sale: One bag of wolverines.

Prior to my years old Pitting of him, I was of two opinions.

1 - I hated his show.

2 - I refused to accept that a 5 to 44 minute fix was possible.
Several Dopers helped to me see that my #2 opinion was based on false data. Apparantly, the patients on his show are involved in much, much more than we see on the end product edited for time TV show. So, I gave up that #2 opinion.
I still claim #1, tho. I hate his show. I don’t ever tune to it myself, and those times I am forced to hear it (jobs in people’s homes where they watch it), I just tune it out as much as possible. So there! :stuck_out_tongue:

ETA: before any idiots respond stupidly to my post, make sure you’ve read the entire fucking thing.

“Today is a good day to Pit Dr. Phil” - Ancient Klingon Proverb

Just this morning, I read that Dr. Phil is willing to blame the Virginia Tech shootings on video games. You know, without a shred of evidence that the shooter had ever actually even played anything more violent than Tetris.

Well, I defended the guy but I don’t know if I can get behind that line of thinking.

Looks like I picked the wrong day to quit sniffing glue.

You’re right, so I take it back.

I still hate the guy with the intensity of a thousand lukewarm half-caf moccachinos.

[Roy Batty] THAT’S the spirit! [/RB]

I merely dislike him with the tepidity of a dozen left-out-too-long party nachos.

The few times I’ve seen his show, his advice seemed to me to be all the same on each and every show I’ve seen: “Quit being stupid, take responsibility for your actions, and get yourself some help.”

One show I partially watched was about men who were cheating on their wives. What advice did he give the men? “Quit being stupid, take responsibility for your actions, and get yourself some help.”

Another show was about families suffering through someone’s drug addiction. His advice to the drug addicts: “Quit being stupid, take responsibility for your actions, and get yourself some help.”

Yet another show I remember seeing about seemingly unmanageable teenagers… again his advice the the teens: “Quit being stupid, take responsibility for your actions, and get yourself some help.”

Hell, if that is all he’s going to tell people, then I should have TV show too.