Let’s hope so. In fact, since the show was broadcast, there’s a big honkin’ chuck o’ evidence that Dr. Phil was notified, hence the authorities will no doubt be notified.
Heh. Shinyhead McTexas. Good’n.
My last post was in response to post #18, BTW.
I’m putting hope in Madatory Reporting of Child Abuse laws.
Entertainer or no, he’s still a shrink. His board of directors has a bunch of medical professionals on it. The after-care people the family has been sent to are, too. There’s just no way this is going to fly under the radar. At least we can hope, for the sake of the kids.
Whatever the specifics of this story are, the man is a smug jackass.
Holy shit - I’m watching it now.
Without commenting on if it’s a good idea for this to be on TV (I’m thinking no), that woman should never be allowed to be alone with any children, ever again, and she should probably have her tubes tied.
I’m perfectly willing to concede that she probably has post-partum psychosis, but she’s only a bathtub away from drowning those kids.
Shit - she’s got a 3 year old self harming. That’s just not cool.
No, he is not a shrink. He’s not an MD, not a psychiatrist. He’s a clinical psychologist. As such he does not prescribe medications. He does promote diet supplements, though. :rolleyes:
Nothing wrong with being a duly licensed and certified clinical psychologist. They help a lot of people. Just don’t mistake him for a medical doctor.
I’m watching now too, because of this thread.
OK, so after he interviews the two little kids, he hugs the girl, the to the boy he goes “you can shake my hand.”
I’m confused. It’s two little kids. Either they both need hugs, or you need to shake both of their hands because you’re a disgusting old man and you need to keep your hands off them.
I vote for the latter.
They could actually be extremely relieved that he saved their asses. It could have been an effort to show them that not all physical contact with adults is violent. I think some of you need to lighten up on ol’ Dr. Phil. He’s not the bad guy here.
“Mental illness” can be a little vague anyway. Maybe she has a personality disorder with some perverted beliefs about parenting thrown in. The most important thing is that she wants help and Dr. Phil is berating her. Bad move.
Surely she will get some intensive counselling while the children are protected from her rage.
My mother was like that. I can remember her making me get out of the car on the way to prayer meeting so that she could examine my face in the headlights to make sure that no marks were showing up on my face.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you here, and I also don’t know enough about the Dr Phil show to know how people end up on the show… but doesn’t it seem like if she really wanted help she would have immediately sought help from a doctor in her area instead of glamorizing it on TV? Even if Dr Phil hooks her up with someone, why not do that in the FIRST place? How does taking this to primetime help your problem?
I still don’t get it. Why does the little girl get a big squishy hug and the boy is practically admonished, “you can shake my hand.”
Because the boy is older?
I’d buy that if the boy was 17. I checked Dr. Phil-of-himself’s website.
What? At 10 an abused boy is supposed to suck it up and be a man? Little girl is victim and needs lots of huggy-woogums?
Someone talk some sense into me quick, because I’m thinking my ideas of child rearing must be very different from Dr. Phuk-head child rearing.
Okay, the sexism issue aside, I’ll defend Dr. Phil here.
First, I’ve never seen his show but I’ve seen his picture and saw a 30 second promo for him on an upcoming Oprah show, so I feel highly qualified to comment.
To begin with, like the show says at the start, this isn’t psychotherapy, this is a trained clinical psychologist telling you how you’ve fucked up your life and came to have the miserable, dysfunctional existence that you now have. Psychotherapy may be offered behind the scenes on an ongoing basis, but a one hour show isn’t the place.
Like alice_in_wonderland said, freaking out on your kids but being able to control your behavior with adults doesn’t point to any Axis-I mental disorder that I know of (maybe some sort of Axis-II), what it points to is being an asshole. Furthermore, simply because one has a mental illness in this country doesn’t excuse you from any of your behavior unless you are literally unaware or unable to distinguish right from wrong in your actions. Some lawyers on the board can come in and fill in the finer points in this one. So, even if she does suffer from some sort of Axis-II or other disorder, that far from excuses abusive behavior. There way be a legitimate need for this woman to enter therapy, but the most important goal at this moment is to stop this abuse.
The woman needed to be told unequivocally and without any sort of, “well, maybe it’ okay because you had a rough childhood or your depressed or no one is affectionate towards you…” crap that her behavior was unacceptable and needed to stop. Is television to best forum for it? Probably not, but it’s where things happened to get played out. Since my understanding is that Dr. Phil is a cognitive-behavioral therapist, this isn’t even a bad jumping off point for behavioral therapy; simply not allowing herself to be in situations where she has behaved badly in the past.
I have seen nothing pit-worthy in this thread so far on the part of Dr. Phil. He may be a sanctimonious jackass but he hasn’t done anything wrong as far as I can see.
Also, I’ve never been a little girl, but when I was a little boy about that age, having full-grown men ask to shake my hand as an adult was the best feeling in the world.
Oh and another thing: The only thing that’s better than a TV personality with 6 years of training and years of clinical practice at being a clinical psychologist playing therapist?
A Doper with no training or practice in clinical psychology making a drive-by diagnosis of, “she’s got somethin’!”
threemae, I do agree that immediately diagnosing this cunt as mentally ill is premature. There is still such a thing as being a plain old stupid ass mean bitch, without somehow vaguely excusing it by calling it a mental illness. “Ooh, ooh, it’s my hormones. It’s post-partum stress something or other even though I gave birth ten years ago.”
I get that. I really do. Was a little boy myself once. So what was the little girl supposed to feel? All helpless & pitiful?
Yeah, I don’t know. That could be plain ol’ sexism. Perhaps we should write a strongly worded letter.
I’m thinking neither parent should be allowed anywhere near these kids. The kids said the father hits them with a stick and kicks them with steel-toed boots. He said that’s how he was raised and he turned out fine. :dubious:
Maybe he spoke with the boy earlier and found that he feels he’s too old for hugs (like most 10 year old boys). Maybe they edited his hug out. Why is everyone dissecting the fuck out of a hug and a handshake?