Teletherapists
Famous Teletherapist Dr. Phil Displays Scandalous Malpractice In Britney Spears Case
October 5th, 2007 by David Dansker
Popular teletherapist1 Dr. Phil has announced that troubled performer Britney Spears “is a suicide risk,”2 and that she may need to “be involuntarily committed.”3 While reports of the doctor’s statements were still being looked into several questions were raised at TheNewsBeats, and no doubt in newsrooms across the country. For instance, did Spears seek treatment form the good doctor, obtain his professional advice and warnings, and then broadcast her confidentially obtained prognosis? Was Dr. Phil contacted privately by an agent of the principal, and had an opinion wrenched from him, and then that agent leaked it to the public?
As the details of story soon became known, in all questions the answer was negative. Dr. Phil took it upon himself to examine Spears in absentia and air his professional diagnosis publicly to millions over his television show. Even seasoned reporters were aghast, and immediately other questions were being asked. All of them had more or less the same starting point. What if Spears sees his television show, or reads the doctor’s diagnosis in the media, as she most certainly will, could the strong words from the famous doctor carry strong suggestive power as well?
Here is where the sham in giving these talkingheads the title of “Doctor” temporally causes a neon-outage everywhere else in the world by hi-lighting itself. Such reckless diagnoses in the real medical profession are subject to hefty medical malpractice suits. Yet, the people claiming to be experts in the intricacies of human behavior and thinking, always tempted to fortify their claim of scientific foundation by displaying an assertion with predictive value, can make what might be the most destructive comments possible with impunity.
It is usually irresponsible for any public figure to make such comments even casually, but for one who holds himself out as certified in human behavior, and in the accurate diagnosis and cure of psychological disorders, it is reprehensible.
Perhaps the doctor himself suffers from some serious disorder which would explain such a server cognitive lapse. Maybe a new term could be coined like vaingloriousitis; where bloviating blowhards shamelessly promote themselves. Symptoms may include making scandalous statements form a deep seated desire to increase television ratings. In severe cases, the subject may become maniacal and seek to manipulate outcomes of an extra-sensational character, or that are harmful or even tragic.
A person suffering from this disorder might easily make thinly guised predictions over a troubled starlet in order to claim the implied credentials should events transpire as he surmises, or he might contrive a public statement as a covert invitation for treatment of a famous personality, also increasing his own prestige were it accepted.
It is that wicked of a world. It is a place where an industry that builds a person up will tear them down even faster to use them as fertilizer for someone else’s career. It is a place where the best help touted is a highly-paid conversation that might get a person to keep a neat garden for their short walk down here without disturbing others too much so that they can quietly go to hell.
That’s the tall glass of it. The only thing that changes is the mixtures and the doses, and the ones who dispense it.
As for the starlets, the stalwarts, the stumbling, and the stranded; there is a way for you to shine forth as bright as the sun in the Kingdom of your Father. Jesus will give to all those who ask of him Living Water that will become a well inside springing up into everlasting life (John 4:11-14). You need only ask; there are no fees: the price has already been paid in full.
Notes:
1. Teletherapists - a neologism of TheNewsBeats.com; a) used to describe psychologists who use television to communicate the theories and methods of psychotherapy, b) and or practice those methods on others or themselves.
2. Don Kaplan, “Dr. Phil: Britney Spears Is Suicide Risk, May Need to Be Committed,” NYPost.com, October 05, 2007.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,299583,00.html
3. Ibid.
