Lately Dr. Phil is getting a lot of bad press.  For me it is all just hearsay and really doesn’t have much to do with who the real Dr. Phil is anyway. There is so much distortion in the press and by individuals generally that it would be difficult to determine the “truth” or motivations around any of the circumstances that are presented in so many of the discussions regarding him or his television show.

The more important aspect to examine is does Dr. Phil seem to “get it” when it comes to understanding human nature and the underlying essence of who we really are?  I have not read his book “Self Matters” or any of his works because I just don’t think he has anything to say more than I already know or am presently learning from other teachers.  However, I have examined his online statement found at [1] www.drphil.com that is apparently the basis of much of his “work.” 

So here is why I think Dr. Phil doesn’t “get it.” From his website he asks the following question.

Are you living a life that is more in tune with your “authentic” self (who you were created to be) or your “fictional” self (who the world has told you to be)?

Ok on the surface the question he asks indicates some awareness that there is a difference between who we are and who we “think” we are…so far so good and I generally agree with the basic premise, but now for his explanation.

Authentic Self

When you’re asked, “Who are you?” what is your answer? “I’m a mom.” “I’m a doctor.” “I live in Ohio.” Often the answer is not who you are, but what you do, what your social station is, or how you see your function in life. You can’t answer who you are, because you don’t know.

There is another level of existence that is the real, true, genuine substance of who you are. It’s what Dr. Phil defines as the authentic self.

The authentic self is the you that can be found at your absolute core. It is the part of you not defined by your job, function or role. It is the composite of all your skills, talents and wisdom. It is all of the things that are uniquely yours and need expression, rather than what you believe you are supposed to be and do.
 
In the first paragraph, he asks the right questions and so seems to be correctly leading us into discovering the true meaning of “self” and some of the rest of the dialog is ok, but soon we find the errors when in the third paragraph he writes that we are “the composite of all our skills, talents, and wisdom…”  If we step back and take a look at the first question above “…or your fictional self (who the world has told you to be)?” it becomes obvious that his explanation doesn’t shed as much light on the authentic self as we might hope, because skills, talents and wisdom are  part of content (what the world has told you).  That is to say, who I think I am in terms of “fictional self” is just my identification with what the world has taught me or the content of my knowledge. Another way to say this is that skills, talents, & wisdom are also learned and all learning is content and this knowledge has little to do with who the “I” is in understanding the authentic self.

Now let’s look at how Dr. Phil views the “Fictional Self.”

Fictional Self

When you’re not living faithfully to your authentic self, you find yourself feeling incomplete, as if there is a hole in your soul. You may have found that it’s easier to fill the roles your family and friends expect of you, rather than becoming who you really want to be. Living this way drains you of the critical life energy you need to pursue the things you truly value.

When you live a life that has you ignoring your true gifts and talents while performing assigned or inherited roles instead, you are living as your fictional self.

The fictional self sends you false information about who you are and what you should be doing with your life. It blocks the information you need in order to maintain the connection with your authentic identity. Relying on information from the fictional self means you’re putting your trust in a broken compass.

There is much confusion here especially when we realize that Dr. Phil has identified the Authentic Self at least moderately in terms of content or learning. The one remark in the explanation about “Fictional Self” that Dr. Phil gets almost right is in the third paragraph when he writes that “it blocks….connection with your authentic identity.” Much of the rest of his explanation is confusing because the “hole in the soul” has nothing to do with “soul”, but is the dysfunction of thinking or ego which is all about the content.  So let’s see if we can re-frame the ‘Authentic Self’ and ‘Fictional Self’ in another way.

I’m only going to give a brief, but different understanding here.  To really do this ‘justice’ would require a book, which perhaps I will write someday, but others have already done so and their teachings are sufficiently enlightening for the moment.

The “Fictional Self” is really the identification with our own ‘Ego’ or rather that is to say the entire library of learning that exists in our own heads.  Ego also includes those conditioned emotional responses that are a result of our ‘thinking’ and is about learned behavior more generally. It’s really not the content or knowledge itself that is the problem. The content is what we are taught and includes our language, skills, culture, the entire “knowledge” of our world and this is good because this gives us the tools in which to communicate with each other.  The problem is that we identify ‘self” with that information or content as if it is “me”, my name, my family, my career, my position, or even “my story.” It is true that we play various ‘roles’ in society in order to perform certain functions, but we have become so identified with those roles and our heads are so full of  noisy thoughts that we only rarely experience the deeper authentic “I” that is the real self. Also, much of that information or content is contaminated with lies (others ‘personal truths’ or stories as well as our own) that have nothing to do with the real “us.” That is to say we think of ourselves in terms of my name, where I live, my race, my culture, my religion, my clothes, my friends, etc.  The noise of all this thinking does block us from our authentic self, if for no other reason that there is so much noise. However because we so often identify the “me” with “my thinking” everything in our life becomes distorted since we are then attached in a dysfunctional way to ‘thought’ and because other’s do this as well the “distortions” created by this ‘attachment’ are transmitted along with the “content” we learn.

The “Authentic Self” is really something that we can only give verbal or written “pointers” too.  We can offer direction or ‘sign posts,’, but there is no way to really explain or describe it directly because it just “is.” That is to say it is the “I am” with no other qualifiers following it.  We can experience this inner authentic self in moments of profound beauty and they happen all the time, but we are unconscious in our awareness of them.  For example, when we smell a beautiful flower and just “be” with the scent with no thought to explain it we momentarily enter a different ‘space.’  In that moment, we may sense our actual inner being or awareness and there is no thought, no verbal explanation required or attached to the experience.  Nor could any words really describe such an experience. It is the same when we watch a sleeping child and just enjoy that precious moment of “watching” – without any attachment or association to thought. There are many ways or methods we can use to begin the process of experiencing “being” more often and bring this “awareness” into our everyday lives. It is this awareness or what some call ‘presence’ that is the real Authentic Self, but for now rather than go into a more detailed explanation or write further about those “tools” we can use to help us stay ‘present,’ just know that it exists and we all share this presence.  It is the very essence of life that exists in every human being.

As for Dr. Phil?  He does do much good with the help he offers to many of his guests.  And some of the “psychological” advice given, even if it is misplaced, is helpful to many people in creating more appropriate egoic behavior, but that still has little to do with the authentic self.  Also, I don’t like the overly played dramatics in some of his episodes, but then again this is “entertainment” and our egos are parasitic so they just love to feed on other people’s dramas. I do hope that someday he will become more fully aware of his own true authentic self and bring some deeper teachings to his audience, but then that may not play well on TV and he’ll be out of work.