Dr. Phil

**Magnolia** · 03-17-2019, 03:16 PM

Could anybody tell me anything about Dr. Phil and his tv show?
Is he/it popular a lot? Is he considered to be an authority by public?
Thank you!

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For explanation: I have followed for a while an interesting case (interesting for me) of a family who have 2 "mentally ill kids" (parents are divorced now); this family attended the show (mother and her new husband lost custody after that show( children were took away from them )...
but what i was surprised about the most was the reaction of public (on fb, etc.)... people seemed to believe everything to that Dr. Phil, it seemed they see him like a God...

**~~KMack~~** · 03-17-2019, 06:27 PM

Those tv shows are very scripted, and not believable. Guests are certainly paid and put up in hotels etc.

**nittionia** · 03-17-2019, 06:43 PM

It's very very popular in the US but like KMack said, it's scripted (like all shows on TV). The show plays off of shock factor and drama. He isn't really considered to be an actual doctor by viewers, he actually isn't even licensed to practice psychology in the US since 2006.

With that said, I think he's a good guy.

**Magnolia** · 03-17-2019, 07:20 PM

Yes, I know how these shows usually work...

On the other hand I followed that woman's yt channel (for several months) and it was disturbing and incredible.
She definitely loved attention, about her kids several documents were made...

Her daughter was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 6 (now 17) and she ordered for her medicine that is prescribed only to serious patients with "serious" schizophrenia (nothing else works for them, they are dangerous to themselves, to other people), it can have serious side effects (e.g. brain damage)... in years it had visible effect on that girl.

Her son started to have some issues too... she visited around 50 doctors to get for him the same medicine (he was diagnosed with autism but she was convinced he suffered from schizophrenia too)... and result:

Very often he looked even worse (despite as a smaller kid he was able to speak, to move normally, to eat normally)

Practically all videos of these children were removed from yt.... but it was really bad the mother published how that boy was on toilet, in shower, she spoke about menses of her daughter in front of everyone. That channel was so scary...