Bad Therapist

Rachel and Ash peer into the soul of Phil McGraw, Oprah's favorite straight-talking daytime TV guru, who has more recently pivoted to pro-ICE content creator. Folksy animal metaphors abound.

Sources:

Phil McGraw, Self Matters: Creating Your Life From the Inside Out, https://shop.drphil.com/products/book-self-matters-creating-your-life-from-the-inside-out-studio

Sophia Dembling & Lisa Gutierrez, The Making of Dr Phil: The Straight-Talking True Story of Everyone's Favorite Therapist, https://www.strandbooks.com/the-making-of-dr-phil-the-straight-talking-true-story-of-everyone-s-favorite-therapist-9780471696599.html

David Armstrong and Evan Allen, "Dr. Phil says he rescues people from addiction. Others say his show puts guests' health at risk," Stat News & Boston Globe - https://www.statnews.com/2017/12/28/dr-phil-guests-say-show-risks-health-of-some-addicts/

David Armstrong and Evan Allen, "How Dr. Phil's new addiction recovery venture trades on his TV show's marketing clout," Stat News & Boston Globe - https://www.statnews.com/2017/12/29/dr-phil-path-to-recovery/

Scaachi Koul, "Dr. Do Nothing," BuzzFeed News - https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/scaachikoul/dr-phil-mcgraw-mental-health-danielle-bregoli

Dennis Cass, "Dr. Phil Is a Softie," Slate - https://slate.com/culture/2003/10/dr-phil-s-fat-fighting-crusade.html

David K. Li, Janhvi Bhojwani and Toby Lyles, "How 'Dr. Phil' suddenly became so outspoken about immigration," NBC - https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/dr-phil-immigration-ice-raids-rcna189691

Nitish Pahwa, "Just What the Doctor Ordered," Slate - https://slate.com/business/2025/10/dr-phil-mcgraw-donald-trump-merit-media-maga.html

Lisa de Moraes, "On Dr. Phil, a Dose of Bad Medicine?" Washington Post - https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63905-2004Sep30.html

Matt Flegenheimer, "Dr. Phil's Road From Oprah to ICE Raids," New York Times - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/10/style/dr-phils-road-from-oprah-to-ice-raids.html

Merit Street Media YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@newsonmeritstreet/videos

Eric Rasmussen & David Ewoldsen, "Treatment via Television: The Relation Between Watching Dr. Phil and Viewers' Intentions to Seek Mental Health Treatment," Journal of Health Communication - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10810730.2015.1114054

Colton Wooten, "My Years in the Florida Shuffle of Drug Addiction," New Yorker - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/21/my-years-in-the-florida-shuffle-of-drug-addiction

Teen Torture, Inc. HBO - https://play.hbomax.com/show/6e25d97c-26ec-439b-83ef-6b3cca5af597

Ash and Rachel explore the checkered career of Wilhelm Reich, and try not to get too boxed in about it.

Sources:

• Wilhelm Reich, The Sexual Revolution, 1945
• Wilhelm Reich, Selected Writings, 1960
• Peter Reich, A Book of Dreams, 1973
• Christopher Turner, Adventures in the Orgasmatron, 2011
• "Weatherwatcher: Wilhelm Reich's Cloudbuster," David Hambling, The Guardian, July 6 2011: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2011/jul/06/weatherwatch-cloudbuster
• Stillpoint Berlin, Re-reading the psychology of Wilhelm Reich, "Life and Work in the Modern Work System," by Christian Smith, January 25, 2017: https://youtu.be/0YqNW2w9vWc?si=7iMzSUQTl6pRHrDa
• https://wilhelmreichmuseum.org/about/biography-of-wilhelm-reich/
• "The New Cult of Sex and Anarchy," Mildred Eddy Brady, Harpers 1947: https://harpers.org:8443/archive/1947/04/the-new-cult-of-sex-and-anarchy/

Rachel and Ash venture into the world of neuro-linguistic programming, trying (and failing) to use word-spells to get everything they've ever wanted. Content warning: NXIVM, murder, pick-up artists.

Sources:

Frank Clancy & Heidi Yorkshire, "The Bander Method" - Mother Jones, Feb/Mar 1989 https://books.google.com/books?id=DOcDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA22#v=onepage&q&f=false

Robert S. Spitzer, "Virginia Satir & Origins of NLP" - https://www.social-engineer.org/wiki/archives/NLP/NLP-Satir395.pdf

Tomasz Witkowski, "Thirty-Five Years of Research on Neuro-Linguistic Programming. NLP Research Data Base. State of the Art or Pseudoscientific Decoration?" Polish Psychological Bulletin - https://philpapers.org/rec/WITTYO

Richard Wiseman, et al., "The Eyes Don't Have It: Lie Detection and Neuro-Linguistic Programming," PLoS ONE - https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0040259

Terrence McClendon, The Wild Days: NLP 1972-1981 - https://archive.org/details/wilddays0000mccl

Toni Natalie & Chet Hardin, The Program: Inside the Mind of Keith Raniere and the Rise and Fall of NXIVM - https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-program-inside-the-mind-of-keith-raniere-and-the-rise-and-fall-of-nxivm-chet-hardin/6d3afa01e96ff5ad

Ross Jeffries, How To Get the Women You Desire Into Bed - https://www.maerivoet.org/website/links/miscellaneous/speed-seduction-book/resources/speed-seduction-book.pdf

Neil Strauss, The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists - https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-game-penetrating-the-secret-society-of-pickup-artists-neil-strauss/659bc135ee8fb93e

Louis Theroux Tests out Hypnotic Dating - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn_oqEOtLYU

• Elizabeth Kübler-Ross - On Death and Dying (1969)
• Elizabeth Kübler-Ross - On Life After Death (1991)
• Elizabeth Kübler-Ross - The Wheel of Life: A Memoir (1997)
• Jessica Weisberg - Asking for a Friend: Three Centuries of Advice on Life, Love, Money, and Other Burning Questions from a Nation Obsessed (2007)
• "Doctor Noted for Work with the Dying Involved in Controversy Over Seances," Los Angeles Times, October 15, 1979

Produced by Zoe Kurland. Music by Flock of Dimes.

Ash and Rachel delve into the world of chatbot therapy -- sit back and listen as the machines glitch out and reveal their true selves.

SOURCES:

• Hillman, James, and Michael Ventura. We've Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy – And the World's Getting Worse. New York: HarperCollins, 1992 (e-book version 2007)
• Balan, Raluca, and Thomas P. Gumpel. "ChatGPT Clinical Use in Mental Health Care: Scoping Review of Empirical Evidence." JMIR Mental Health (via PMC), December 24, 2025
• Lewis-Kraus, Gideon. (2026). What is Claude? Anthropic Doesn't Know, Either. Retrieved from:https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/02/16/what-is-claude-anthropic-doesnt-know-either
• Luo, Xiaochen, et al. ""Shaping ChatGPT into my Digital Therapist": A thematic analysis of social media discourse on using generative artificial intelligence for mental health." Digital Health, vol. 11, June 3, 2025
• Raile, Paolo. "The usefulness of ChatGPT for psychotherapists and patients." Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, January 4, 2024
• Solms, M. (2013). The Conscious Id. Neuropsychoanalysis, 15(1), 5–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/15294145.2013.10773711
• https://www.thehumanlineproject.org/

** in-episode correction: Pat Ogden created Sensorimotor Psychotherapy not Somatic Experiencing (this was Peter Levine)**

Produced by Zoe Kurland. Music by Flock of Dimes.

Season 2 of Bad Therapist starts April 14th.

Part Two of Two on Hysteria. Ash and Rachel seek knowns and unknowns about the contested origins of Hysteria finding its way into the emergent psychological annals. Golden Siggie takes the lead. Find metaphors doing *the most* in a teen's dreams, and more!

This is the last of our current season. If Bad Therapist is pleasing to your psyche, please rate, review and subscribe. We hope to see you for Season 2!

SOURCES

• Gilman, Sander L., Helen King, Roy Porter, G. S. Rousseau, and Elaine Showalter. Hysteria Beyond Freud. University of California Press, 1993.
• Scull, Andrew. Hysteria: The Disturbing History. Oxford University Press, 2021.
• Freud, Sigmund. Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria. Touchstone, 1997 (originally published 1905).
• Malcolm, Janet. "Trouble in the Archives—II: The Battle Over Sigmund Freud's Secret." The New Yorker, December 12, 1983.

Produced by Zoe Kurland. Music by Flock of Dimes.

Part One of Two on Hysteria. Ash and Rachel dig into the tangled history of this complex and ever-evolving diagnosis, starting with its medical origins. From ancient theories to outdated treatments, we're pulling from the antiquated archives to unpack the evolution of this so-called malady. Stay tuned for Part Two next week—Freud on Hysteria!

SOURCES:

• Gilman, Sander L., Helen King, Roy Porter, G. S. Rousseau, and Elaine Showalter. Hysteria Beyond Freud. University of California Press, 1993.
• Acocella, Joan. Creating Hysteria: Women and Multiple Personality Disorder. Jossey-Bass, 1999.
• Scull, Andrew. Hysteria: The Disturbing History. Oxford University Press, 2021.

Produced by Zoe Kurland. Music by Flock of Dimes.

This week, in honor of St. Valentine's Day, Bad Therapist makes a special guest appearance on a favorite podcast, You're Wrong About, to get to the bottom of Emotional Labor— a sociological and labor-related construct that has snuck its way into impersonal realms and colloquialisms. And in doing so, we solve the entire country's relationship problems— you're welcome.

Hosted by Sarah Marshall. Produced by Carolyn Kendrick

RESOURCES:

• Hochschild, Arlie Russell. The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. University of California Press, 1983.
• Hackman, Jess. "Where's My Cut? On Unpaid Emotional Labor." The Toast, July 13, 2015.
• [MetaFilter Discussion: "Where's My Cut? On Unpaid Emotional Labor"](https://www.metafilter.com/151267/Wheres-My-Cut-On-Unpaid-Emotional-Labor).
• Hackman, Rose. Emotional Labor: The Invisible Work Shaping Our Lives and How to Claim Our Power. Flatiron Books, 2023.

Rachel and Ash discuss an idea that's all the rage among coaches and influencer types in Austin and elsewhere: polarity. Spoiler alert: it's essentially a New Age-y version of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, and its inventor has some of the worst ideas we've ever heard about how to respond to an angry woman (….tickle her????).

Sources:

• The Madelyn Moon Show - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU8GwCzSVVno7KHfqNFdqrw
• What is the Divine Feminine? - https://maddymoon.com/blog/divine-feminine
• What is the Divine Masculine? - https://maddymoon.com/blog/divine-masculine-2
• Divine Polarity in Relationships - https://maddymoon.com/blog/divine-polarity
• Madelyn Moon on polarity & the patriarchy - https://www.instagram.com/madelynmoon/p/CjQYV7rLr7O/
• John Wineland - https://www.youtube.com/@JohnWineland
• Breath of Fire - HBO documentary on Guru Jagat - https://www.hbo.com/breath-of-fire
• Deida, David (1997). The Way of the Superior Man: A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work, and Sexual Desire - https://deida.info/the-way-of-the-superior-man/
• Deida, David (2002). Dear Lover: A Woman's Guide to Men, Sex, and Love's Deepest Bliss - https://deida.info/dear-lover/
• Jung, C. G. (1964). Man and His Symbols. Dell Publishing.

Produced by Zoe Kurland. Music by Flock of Dimes.