McGraw’s book is how familiar it all sounds. By saying that the self is what matters, he is pulling God off his throne. However, he is still taking a theological position. On those rare occasions when Doctor Phil does mention God, it is usually to take his name in vain. The book says nothing about Christianity, and almost nothing about religion in general. We also like to be in charge, and Doctor Phil promises that if we follow his advice, we will “control virtually every aspect of experience in this world”. Our real motto is not “In God We Trust,” but “Trust Thyself”. For starters, Americans have always believed in the self. That is a staggering claim, one that deifies the self, placing you at the center of your universe. He writes: “Every one of us, you included, has within us everything we will ever need to be, do, and have anything and everything we will ever want and need”. McGraw–is because you have within yourself all the resources you need for every situation in life. The reason this approach to life works–according to Dr. “The ‘fix’ I’m talking about,” writes Doctor Phil, “always deals with you being true to yourself from the inside out”. It’s also about self-affirmation, or believing “your personal truth,” which is what “you have come to believe about you”. It’s about self-awareness: “you have to get intimately in touch with you”. The way to become the person you were always meant to be is to listen to your inward voice, to connect with your “authentic self”–the real you. The way Doctor Phil solved his problems was by working from the inside out, and that’s what he tells his readers to do, too. I betrayed who I was and instead accepted a fictional substitute that was defined from the outside in”.

“I ignored my self,” he writes, “and lived for people, purposes, and goals that weren’t my own. Instead, he was always trying to meet other people’s expectations. I knew there was something wrong with my life, but for those ten years, I avoided dealing with it.” What was the problem? Basically, Doctor Phil wasn’t being true to himself. He tells how unhappy he was during his early years in counseling: “I knew I wasn’t living the life I was meant to live. Phil’s latest book begins with a sort of conversion story. But for whatever reason, I decided it was time to do a Window on the World on America’s most famous psychologist, Dr. Or maybe it was the title of his latest book, the #1 bestseller Self Matters. Suddenly Doctor Phil was everywhere–chatting with Oprah, analyzing Larry King, and making a cameo on “Good Morning, America.” It could have been his no-nonsense style, the aggressive way that he told total strangers to get their act together. Or perhaps it was the way his face kept showing up on the sides of buses and on national television.

Dr phil the act true story