R. Danielle Egan, Assistant Professor
Stephen D. Papson, Professor
Department of Sociology, St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY

Abstract

Using The Dr. Phil Show as a case study, this paper explores the processes of secularization and sacralization in the media spectacle of talk television. It argues that TheDr. Phil Show employs the religious narrative of conversion to frame the personal experiences and the problems of participants. Using discourse analysis, the paper examines two shows that exemplify this narrative: “Addiction” and “The Weight Loss Challenge.” It argues that the morphology of conversion is comprised of two components: the confessional and the testimonial.  As participants proceed through these ends of the spectrum of the conversion narrative, a transformation of self is depicted. The televised presentation of reoccurring conversions functions to produce a sense of moral authority, self-empowerment, and an imagined community. The paper concludes that the boundary between the sacred and the secular blur in this highly commodified television spectacle.  

Introduction1

[1] A former college football player, Psychology Ph.D. cum life coach, walks on stage after an introductory visual montage composed of images of him that vacillate between the authoritarian who talks tough, the compassionate man who puts his arm around a crying woman, the regular guy who gives an audience member a high five and the loving husband who walks hand in hand with his wife. These images, along with the spotlights, loud music and the standing ovation he receives from his predominately white female audience2 provide a larger than life image. This image of a man who is part therapist, part father, part fantasy husband and part televangelist not only differentiates him from daytime talk show competitors, but also validates his statements about the lives of program participants. He will “tell it like it is” and give you the "truth," or at least his truth, because he is “a man with a plan.”3  McGraw offers a simple promise, to provide the answer to your problems. If you listen, he will show you the way. If you follow his advice, he “will change your life.”4 If you are willing to invest in his (relationship) rescue remedies, realize that your “self matters,” and incorporate his life strategies and be converted, he offers the possibility of a life transformation. 

[2] We are interested in how The Dr. Phil Show blends a religious narrative into the commercial world of branding through self promotion. For the purpose of this article, we explore the ways in which religion is used in service of the profane with regard to marketing, spectacle and capitalism. We contend that The Dr. Phil Show employs the religious structure of a conversion experience. Although most literature on conversion is used to analyze religious or cult conversion experiences, we argue that Dr. Phil employs this method in a non-religious milieu. It is this structural mechanism that allows him to speak with religious-like authority on his television show. It is his combination of entertainer and expert located at the intersection of spectacle, the drive for new markets and the structure of religious ritual that makes The Dr. Phil Show a particularly rich case study. Moreover, The Dr. Phil Show provides fertile ground for a discussion of the reappearance of religious structures in secular forms (therapy, self-help, TV spectacles), on the possibility of agency within commodified markets, and the mix of the hyper-fragmented style of postmodernity with a definitively modern message of certainty. We contend that the conversion experience becomes the rhetorical or narrative architecture upon which people place their experiences and the solutions to their problems. Guests and audience members are able to give ambiguous and complicated histories an intelligible phenomenological understanding post facto. McGraw wants to “create a new movement,” as well as new markets, and the rhetorical method of conversion allows him to do so.

[3] We anchor our analysis in a sociological perspective informed by Durkheim’s conceptualization of religion as a system of practices that create the social and emotional ties that produce and bind community together. The sacred (objects, persons, places and events) emerges from the social and always speaks back to the social. In this regard, Durkheim moves away from more theological perspectives on religion or an assessment of the inherent value of a particular religious belief system, instead he focuses on the sociological effects of the social formation of religion.5 For Durkheim, whenever there are social aggregations there are the possibilities of emergent social phenomenon and concomitant manifestations (beliefs, norms, laws) of collective consciousness. As such when discussing secularization from this perspective we are referring to the weakening of the moral order and increasing anomie. Following this conception of religion we suggest that Dr. Phil does not represent secularization—he offers the remedy to its problems. He offers re-sacralization in a highly commodified form. He is at base reproducing the social. Ergo he does not replace religion; in fact he and many of his members espouse membership in various religious communities (primarily Jewish and Christian). Rather he performs many of the same social functions religion provides such as providing moral authority, a sense of meaning for the situations within which we find ourselves, and a community in which to participate (albeit a virtual one). This is not a unique phenomenon in postmodern culture.  Zygmunt Bauman argues:

Postmodern men and women do need the alchemist able, or claiming to be able, to transmogrify base uncertainty into precious self-assurance, and the authority of approval (in the name of superior knowledge, or access to wisdom closed to the others) is the philosophical stone these alchemists boast of possessing.  Postmodernity is the era of experts in ‘identity problems’; or personality healers, of marriage guidance, of writers of ‘how to reassert yourself’ books; it is the era of the ‘counseling boom.’6

While the demand for traditional religious experience may wane, the desire for moral certainty and for a coherent sense of identity results in, as Bauman theorizes, an “ever rising demand for identity-experts.”7 Phil McGraw is such an “identity expert.”

[4] McGraw enunciates with moral authority. He confronts participants for their weakness while providing what sounds like a common sense solution. And, while there are similarities between The Dr. Phil Show and other ‘trash talk’ shows, such as the production practice, the use of the spectacle, extreme case scenarios to engage the audience, and topics (e.g., cheating spouses, child drug addiction and sex addiction), McGraw differs from other "trash talk" television hosts such as Maury, Montel, Jenny Jones or Rikki Lake8 by his use of a discourse that blends life coaching, religion, self help, cognitive behavioral psychology and a rational utilitarian philosophy.9

[5] For this analysis, we focus on the narrative of conversion.10 In order to uncover the predominant architecture in which problems are presented and solved, our inquiry involves a systematic qualitative examination of the structures of narratives at play in the show.11 We approach The Dr. Phil Show as a simulated conversion that acts as the primary repetitive and consciously produced structure that allows both participants and audiences to frame their own experiences in a narrative of self-transformation.12 While the amount of material found in the Dr. Phil empire expands exponentially each day, we argue that conversion is the structure that reoccurs most often. Two narratives support the morphology of conversion: the confessional and the testimonial.  For this article, we focus on two shows, one from each end of the conversion spectrum as archetypical representations:  the confessional with a show entitled “Addiction” (1/27/04) and the testimonial with a show entitled “The Ultimate Weight Loss Holiday Challenge” (1/19/04). Our discussion, however, draws from our viewing of 40 Dr. Phil shows aired from December 2003 to February 2004, a discursive reading of McGraw’s books and workbooks: Dr. Phil’s Ultimate Weight Loss Challenge (2003), Self Matters (2003) and Relationship Rescue (2001), and the examination of the Dr. Phil website and listserv (www.drphil.com).

[6] During the months of December 2003 and January 2004 The Dr. Phil Show ranked in the top 10 household shows and had a gross average audience rating between 4.7 and 4.8 according to Nielsen ratings.13 In addition, with viewers between the ages of 18-49, Dr. Phil ranked 2.1, second only to the other talk television host in the top twenty—Oprah Winfrey. 14 Moreover, The Dr. Phil Show was in the top twenty shows with regard to the price of a 30-second advertising slot ($45,000).15 It is both the structure of his show as well as the popularity of his discourse that makes The Dr. Phil Show such a compelling site of analysis.

The Conversion Experience and the Structure of Televangelism

[7] Research on conversion focuses on cults, sects, and new religious formations. Often a processual step model is inducted from observation, interviews and case studies following the convert’s path from personal crisis to establishing affective ties to the chosen community and internalizing a new belief system that serves as a paradigm to interpret and make sense of the world.16 For example, Loftland theorized the foundational sociological model, which involved a seven-step process for conversion.17 These steps illuminate how an individual first realizes that he or she has some unresolved tension that becomes a “turning point” or crisis that must be solved and then goes to religion (to which they may already have a strong predisposition for anyway) to solve the problem. During the conversion process, individuals create strong affective bonds with members of a particular religious group, eventually weakening their relationships with people outside that group.18 Loftland’s model has been critiqued for being over-deterministic.19 Although various steps may be involved in the process of conversion, the most important catalyst for conversion within a variety of religious communities (i.e., Buddhist, Christian, Hare Krishna, Mormon, etc.) has been intensive interaction with members of the community and the development of strong affective bonds with members and the leader of the community.20 How then can this take place in the distant and abstracted space of the televisual? How can conversion be foundational to the production of a talktelevision show and the construction of its star as a messianic figure?

[8] The Dr. Phil Show constructs a formulaic televisual conversion experience. This structure makes McGraw’s show more similar to the structure of televangelism than other talk television shows.  Televangelism is “fully integrated in the discursive and institutional practices of contemporary American television, it aims to provide an overarching, morally correct perspective on the world in concert with the evangelical call to save souls.”21 The success of televangelism is due, in part, to the combination of popular culture, entertainment and religious ideology.22

[9] According to Hayden and Swann, televangelists combine religious messages with market driven interests.23 The goal of this form of “electronic religion” is to spread a message, which will compel people to both follow and support them financially.24 The messages of most televangelists are simple, “Most religious television, like its secular counterpart, deals largely in simple solutions to human problems.”25 Moreover these programs function to give answers and are constrained by the structure of the media format.

What is said must be said quickly and extremely simply, or the audience won’t understand.  Furthermore, audiences also want to be entertained.  And they want to be made to feel good.  When they are made to feel bad, they turn to another channel.  The televangelists preach a message that is supportive to the worth of the individual. 26

In her analysis of The 700 Club, White argues that the program “aims to attract all of its potential viewers—all television viewers in general—to join this subculture.”27 The primary function of the televangelist is to convert the potential believer as well as the non-believer to a position of commitment and affiliation with his religious worldview. The success of this strategy is evidenced in the far-reaching corporate enterprises of televangelists such as Oral Roberts, Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, whose empires include universities, hospitals, research institutes and cable television companies. 28 Like his televangelist counterparts, McGraw also works to attract television viewers to his message and method. The allure of a swelling audience base means not only a higher market share, but also a fecund customer base for his books, tapes, workbooks and inspirational talks. The success of this method is evidenced in the popularity of his products. His books Life Strategies (1999) and The Ultimate Weight Loss Solution: The 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom (2003) were both number one on the New York Times Bestseller List for several months.29

[10] Media-driven preachers work to portray a mode of masculinity that is compassionate and authoritative, and that speaks with uncontested expertise. Frankl observes that televangelists project a paternalistic image by bringing their families on the show to “reinforce their own credibility as respectable and authoritative men.”30  For example, Rex Humbard evoked a fatherly concern with his viewers to convey the message, “Join my prayer key family, and you will not be alone.  I will pray for you in return for your financial gift to my ministry.”31 Similarly, Phil McGraw’s wife Robin appears almost daily as an important audience member who watches and sometimes provides “a woman’s perspective” and holds McGraw’s hand as he walks out at the end of the show. Moreover, his son Jay has now authored several books (The Ultimate Weight Loss for Teens and Life Strategies for Teens (2003) and provides the "young and hip" perspective on the show. There is also a photo gallery on the Dr. Phil website that chronicles his life (since age 6) and provides a visual history of his marriage and family. Photos range from wedding pictures to Dr. Phil holding or coaching his children to family vacations in France and Grand Cayman respectively.   These provide visible proof of his dedication as a husband and father.

[11] The content of McGraw’s messages rarely refers to religion nor does it mirror what televangelists say.  What is striking is the similarity in form and structure rather than substance. As in televangelism, McGraw relies on conversion as the primary narrative strategy of his show.  In this way, McGraw positions himself as an expert who can create the solution to your problems. Participants in this process first confess, renounce their former self and/or self-sustaining practices, subscribe to a new set of beliefs, enter into a struggle with their former belief system and practices, often with occasional backsliding, emerge triumphantly, give witness to their transformation, enter an imagined community, and then proselytize. This is the narrative of conversion—a sense-making device that is intelligible for participants and audience.  According to Harding, conversion “is rhetorical in the sense that it is an argument about the transformation of self that lost souls must undergo, and a method of bringing about change in those who listen to it (emphasis in the original).”32 The show positions participants in this proven pre-existing structure. Keep in mind that televisual conversion is a simulated conversion constructed through the use of montage, planned interviews, cutaways to the audience, and other cinematic and narrative devices, and then performed for an audience for the purpose of expanding that viewing audience and transforming it into a market.

Narratives for Self-transformation

[12] Narratives function as dynamic discursive devices that construct particular understandings for the mundane aspects of everyday life or the realities of events.33 They emerge from particular institutional positions and carry with them particular assumptions and interpretations of the phenomena they translate. The Dr. Phil Show employs two narratives that underpin the larger structure of the conversion experience: the confessional and the testimonial. The confessional functions as an acquiescence to the argument for the necessity for change; it is the rhetorical request for help.  The testimonial shows the transformation and demonstrates the success of the method used to produce it. Most Dr. Phil shows begin with the confessional (often times in the form of a montage)—the telling of one’s problems or sins which then end with a request for help. Then, usually on a later show, the convert offers a testimonial that always begins with a confession to show how far she or he has come. These two narratives function dialectically, with thesis and antithesis guiding individuals closer to the ultimate solution to either a personal or a relational problem.  

[13] By using these narratives, McGraw is able to create a structure or architecture for the stories individuals bring to the show. By providing a ready-made phenomenological framework into which individuals place their experience (whether they may have initially viewed their experiences this way or not), McGraw is able to create for the audience and participants a transformative experience in a highly commodified and secular sphere—daytime television. This structure is not dissimilar to the ways in which religious belief operates more generally:

In religious belief and practice a group’s ethos is rendered intellectually reasonable by being shown to represent a way of life ideally adapted to the actual state of affairs the world-view describes, while the world-view is rendered emotionally convincing by being presented as an image of an actual state of affairs peculiarly well arranged to accommodate such a way of life.34 

[14] According to Dovey, the use of these two narratives is pervasive in talk television. Mixing the therapeutic with the political, a new form of identity politics has emerged in this genre which privileges self-speaking. Both the confessional and the testimonial move the discussion of abuse and victimization into the public domain.35 Dovey also argues that self-naming is a central element in self-transformation relative to a collectivity.36 Working within these similar structures, McGraw establishes himself as the charismatic authority figure with the answers.  McGraw shows the necessity for people to “get real,” transform their lives and, if they follow his “ten steps,” gain entrance into the Dr. Phil community—as imagined as that community may be.37 Therefore, the extent or actuality of the community is irrelevant, what is important is how it comes to be understood by its members.

[15] The attraction of this entrance or acceptance at a time of hyper-individualism, the privatization of women’s lives and postmodern fragmentation seems clear—an imagined community is far better than no community at all.38 It is this promise that is made intelligible via a religion narrative, even though Dr. Phil may use secular language.  The confessional functions as the first step in the structure of the conversion. It is the "turning point" or crisis where someone acknowledges her need for help and that McGraw has the solution to their problem. Through the use of narrative, Dr. Phil generates sense-making maps for the individuals on his show as well as for his audience. Moreover, these narrative structures serve as conduits into the Dr. Phil fold. Participation not only functions as a strategy for self-transformation but also as a prerequisite for entering the Dr. Phil community/market.

“Because I Thought You Could Help”: Mapping the Confessional

[16] The confessional is a common narrative format in the West. Entangling individuals within the microphysics of bio-power that grants access to the “life of the body” and the forms of discipline which seek to control it, the incitement to speak and confess is a modern compulsion.39 Foucault theorized,

The confession is a ritual of discourse in which the speaking subject is also the subject of the statement; it is also a ritual that unfolds within a power relationship, for one does not confess without the presence of a partner who is not simply the interlocutor but the authority who requires the confession, prescribes and appreciates it, and intervenes in order to judge, punish, forgive, console, and reconcile; a ritual in which the truth is corroborated by the obstacles and resistances it has had to surmount in order to be formulated; and finally, a ritual in which the expression alone, independently of its external consequences, produces intrinsic modifications in the person who articulates it; it exonerates, redeems, and purifies him [sic]; it unburdens him [sic] of his [sic] wrongs, liberates him [sic], and promises his [sic] salvation.”40

The increasing proliferation of the confessional as a method gave rise to increasing forms of surveillance vis-à-vis medical exams, psychoanalytic sessions, pedagogical technique and scientific classification.41  Within these institutional settings, individuals became objects of knowledge and were subject to various regimes of classification and comparison against a discursively produced norm. It is through the confessional that individuals are situated and place themselves within institutional systems of classification. As individuals attempt to fit within the norms set forth by particular institutions, they begin to self-impose hegemony. How then does the structure of the confessional operate in our contemporary media culture?

[17] According to White, confession is the predominant narrative structure of American media. White theorizes that “through television, confession disperses and proliferates to the point where it turns in on itself, redefining its own conditions of expression.”42 Baudrillard contends that televisual confession creates a condition where language loses its originality, its irony, and those qualities “which make language more important that what it conveys,” reducing it to only a mode of communication.43 Hyper-mediated confession transcends the privacy of doctor/patient interaction and modifies it to include the person confessing, the television host, the in-studio audience, the at-home television viewers and the products advertised during the show.44 In our contemporary media landscape, those confessing become subject to the scrutiny and the schemes of normalcy of the host and audience. Therefore in the “context of American television, all of these strategies and trajectories of discourse are circulated within networks of consumption and commodity exchange” and thus transform, through the production process, both the medium and message of the confessional.45

[18] The narrative of the confessional employed on The Dr. Phil Show operates in a similar way. Individuals, through their confessions, are evaluated and classified against Dr. Phil’s schema of normalcy. For example, McGraw has shows where guests have had to account for their actions to concerned viewers who are “helping them get real.”  Often there are cutaways to the audience nodding heads and clapping hands to show support for Dr. Phil’s comments. His famous dictum, “What were you thinking?”, produces the most enthusiastic response and serves as a transformative marker. The structure of the confessional thus serves to reinforce McGraw’s position of authority and expertise and the superiority of his method.

[19] Divided into three segments, “Addiction” features three women (Joann, Laura and Anne) with three different addictions: pain pills, ephedrine and sex. During each segment a different woman is featured whose problem is confessed both verbally and visually. After the confession, each participant/patient goes on to talk to Dr. Phil or be spoken to by him, as the case may be. Most often these sessions are composed of several events: (1) the confessing of the problem; (2) the expression of regret; (3) further elaboration and sometimes justification of the problem; (4) the search for an answer; and (5) an acceptance that the correct way to solve their problems is Dr. Phil’s strategy. It is in these confessional moments that McGraw requires his patients to “get real,” as it were, and “get with [his] program.”46

“What Were You Thinking?”: Public Confession, Visual Proof and the Call for Help

[20] The confessional narrative usually starts with a montage that provides both visual and auditory proof. It is made up of quick edit splices, close ups, color and black and white images, music and a "hidden camera" or fly on the wall perspective, whereby the producers incorporate a staged, highly edited and seemingly natural vantage point on the patient’s life.  Although a staged production, realist cinematic encoding produces a sense of authenticity of the request for help. For example Joann, in her montage, says,

I’m running out of pills.  I’ve only got about 10 left.  I wrote to Dr. Phil because I felt that it was my last hope.  I began taking Vicadin in May 2000.  Each time that I gave birth I would feel a strong pull from it.  I used to model. I wore nice clothes. I felt good about myself.  Now that I’m not working I’ve lost me. I don’t have any self esteem.  Every day I take 20 extra strength Vicadins.

During her verbal confession, images of Joann appear “popping pills” in despair in her backyard with her family looking on. Her small son asks if the pills she is giving him are for his asthma or if they are her Vicadin?  The montage ends:

I feel like every tissue in my body is saturated with Vicadin.  Some days I think this is how I’m going to die.  Dr. Phil, how can I kick this habit and stay alive for the sake of my family?

This narrative prefigures Joann as a woman in need of salvation. This suburban mom garners the empathy of the viewer through her request for help and the visual images of her in desperation. The combination of both message and image create a sense that her confession and her need for Dr. Phil’s intervention, or as he terms it “confrontation,” are authentic.

[21] In a similar fashion, Laura confesses her addiction and her need for help. 

Laura:  I’ve been addicted to ephedrine for 11 years and I’m killing myself because of it.  I need to stop.  I started taking ephedrine when I was a freshman in college.  Because I was falling asleep.  It kept me awake through my classes, and it kept my GPA up.  The bottle said do not exceed 2-4 within a 24 hr. period.  I was taking 25 pills a day.  I noticed a significant loss in my weight.  I also noticed men were paying more attention to me and complimenting me on my weight loss.  I’m a bartender.  Ephedrine helps me with my job because I work such late hours.  It keeps me awake, keeps me goin’, keeps me fast.  When I wake up in the morning I go and grab 5 pills of ephedrine.  And that will probably last me till about noon, I take another 5 and I hit a lull about 7 at night so I take another five.

As Laura confesses, images of her trying to stay awake at work, going to her local gas station to buy ephedrine and looking in the mirror are shown to McGraw and the television audience. As further proof of her addiction, Laura discusses the effects of her ephedrine addiction, “I’ve had a ton of bad side effects. Been in the hospital for heart palpitations, thinking I was having a heart attack.  I’ve had to have a blood transfusion.”  At the end of her confessional she asks, “Dr. Phil, I know that my ephedrine addiction is killing me, so why can’t I kick the habit once and for all and save my life?” Establishing authenticity of Laura’s problem, McGraw states, “Is that video a fair representation of how you feel?” to which she replies, “Very true.”

[22] During the final segment Anne, a sex addict, is featured. The form of her confession mirrors the first two. According to Anne,

I have had sex with over 200 men and a few women.  This addiction has ruined my life. It ruined a great marriage.  And it estranged me from my children.  I am ready for change.  I want the second half of my life to be better than the first half of my life.  When I first got married, I was having affairs and I was just messing up.  Whenever I have an emotion that’s out of the ordinary, I want to have sex, whether I’m extremely happy or extremely sad or extremely stressed.

At the end of her confession she states,

My sexual addiction has become a monster that has taken over my life.  Dr. Phil I am a sex addict and I want to stop going from man to man.  Please can you help me?

In the same fashion as the earlier montages, Anne is seen picking someone up, trolling the internet for a potential sex partner and finally walking the street alone. At the end of the montage we see Anne crying. Her desperation palpable, she is clearly in need of McGraw’s “intervention” and “help.”

Confession as Entertainment, Manufactured Crisis and Required Solution

[23] All three confessional montages are fashioned through fast cuts and various camera techniques to both produce authenticity and to garner the empathy of the television audience. However, the confessions also operate as a form of spectacle. The routine of the everyday is given both coherence and vibrancy within this media format.  McGraw attempts to mitigate against the idea that his show is only about spectacle, entertainment or “trash” by stating that although these may be titillating topics, “this is not Jerry Springer.” To confirm his difference he must affirm his expertise. During the show, all three women state that they tried other methods, but it was through Dr. Phil that they thought real change could be made. This is illuminated by this interaction with Joann.

Dr. Phil:  And we’ve talked to your therapist.  How do you feel about your psychologist?

Joann:  I love him, he’s great.

Dr. Phil:  He is.  He’s well trained, he is highly skilled and he cares deeply about you.  Do you lie to him?

Joann:  No.  I haven’t lied to him.

Dr. Phil:  So you’re tellin’ him that you’re taking all this Vicadin everyday?

Joann:  Actually, I was going to tell him on an appointment previous to knowing I was going to come here, I got in there and I couldn’t because I was too ashamed and so I left and then I—

Dr. Phil:  Would that be a no?

Joann:  Yes, sorry.

Dr. Phil:  You haven’t told him the truth about all this until you knew damn well I was going to make you tell the truth.

Joann:  Correct.

McGraw becomes the expert par excellence who, because of his direct approach, is able to “get through” and make Joanne “admit the problem” that her therapist failed to do.  The use of extreme case scenarios illuminates that if his methods could work for these problems, they could work on any. Confessions must have resolution or absolution, or else they become moot. The Dr. Phil Show, to use White’s phrase, “manufactures crisis” which consequently necessitates McGraw’s solution.47  By incorporating his solution into various and sundry crises, both viewer and guest are able to fit into McGraw’s schema for healthy (hegemonic and highly individualistic) living.

[24] This production of crisis and solution engenders a form of identification with the audience and creates more potential converts. A similar structure is found in televangelist programs, where a person may happen upon a program and “realize that precisely his or her problems and situation are being addressed” and thus both viewer and guest become saved.48 McGraw articulates the universalism of addiction as a manufactured crisis with his opening statement for this particular show.

Today is a very important show that goes to people that you wouldn’t always think to be in this category.  Today I’m talking to addicts.  And I’m not talkin’ about the bums that you pretend not to notice on the street.  These addicts are more like your sister, your best friend, maybe even your wife or your husband.

Crisis becomes the indispensable formula for both televangelism and The Dr. Phil Show. “As is so often the case with television, one first has to watch, even with disdain, to be a potential subject for conversion.”49  The messages on the list serve mirror narratives found on the show where individuals confess their problems as they relate to the problems they heard on a particular show. However, unlike the patients on the show, who hear advice from McGraw himself, on the list serve advice is given from other “converts” who espouse and advertise his method. In this regard we see that individuals come to assess themselves and assess others via McGraw’s strategies.  The confessional, as part of the overall structure of conversion with its emphasis on crisis, ultimately becomes an advertisement for McGraw’s products, collapsing religious method with capitalist goals.

The Testimonial: Witnessing the Self-transformative Process

[25]Each Friday Dr. Phil’s Weight Loss Challenge sells his weight loss program. The show includes participants who have used his advice to lose weight and also follows 13 selected regular Challenge participants. Appearing regularly on The Dr. Phil Show, these 13 participants attain a pseudo-celebrity status by unveiling their personal lives to a nationally televised audience. Short biographies, as well as before and after shots, appear on the Dr. Phil website.

[26] “The Ultimate Weight Loss Holiday Challenge” (1/19/04) typifies weight loss shows. Broken into four segments separated by commercial breaks, this show begins with McGraw’s welcome to the audience sprinkled with self-promoting statements. The first segment is composed of three persons (Joy, Amy, and Mike) who have lost weight using McGraw’s program. Each person narrates a montage of their struggle and comments on their success in using McGraw’s method. Joy and Amy appear on the show to provide the visual evidence of their weight loss success. The second segment takes the form of a competition. Here seven of the weight loss challengers are broken up into two teams. Each member of the team that lost the most weight per person over the holidays will win a paid vacation at the Golden Door Spa. The members are brought on stage and weighed. They then comment on their struggle to lose weight during a period of time where there is a lot of social eating. McGraw cheerleads. Segment three is introduced with another weight loss story focusing on Laurie, the mother of two, who lost 76 pounds. This is followed by community advocates for McGraw’s program. Monica runs a contest to lose weight and has a kick-off rally. McGraw attends one of the sessions to show his support while the mayor of Goldsboro, NC proclaims December 27 as Dr. Phil Day.  McGraw then visits another group in Philadelphia. Finally, Garrett the weatherman for KFSM in Fort Smith, Arkansas runs a weatherman weight loss challenge to engage viewers. The final segment cuts to Jay McGraw at North Dallas High School talking to adolescents about weight loss to promote his book Ultimate Weight Solutions for Teens (2003). Giving audience members a copy of his book, the show ends with McGraw promoting Quest Diagnostics and Designs for Help, two companies involved with his program. The program weaves multiple personal stories into this narrative providing multiple points of identification (entrance into the narrative) to its television audience.

Congregations, Audiences and Markets

[27] The testimonial is a rhetorical structure of affirmation shared by many discourses. On the one hand, the testimonial served as structure to enter in or to reaffirm one’s membership in a congregation. Associated with the revivalist tradition, bearing witness functioned to center a member in the moral discourse of religiosity. On the other hand, medicine men of the nineteenth century used shills to testify to the miraculous cures found in their elixirs.  The use of the testimonial can be found in the recovery movement strategies as well as advertising discourse, particularly the infomercial, a structure that mixes testimonies by both experts and users to hawk “innovative” products and services.50 For all these discourses, evidence lies in the testimony itself. Framing it by codes of authenticity is essential. It must be believable.

[28] We argue that the structure of The Dr. Phil Show draws on both these traditions, mimicking a segment of the conversion experience while simultaneously extending a market segment. The testimonial proclaims the healing power of McGraw’s advice that allows for self-transformation, whether physical and/or psychological. By giving witness, participants on the show both attest to their personal salvation (self-actualization) while selling the Dr. Phil brand. Perhaps the only difference between The Dr. Phil Show and an infomercial is that the show buries its commercial intent deeper into the narrative structure and disguises it with a discourse of concern.

[29] In September 2003 when Dr. Phil entered the weight loss market, the New York Times speculated that this life strategist might lose credibility to what seemed to be an obviously market-driven strategy. The article suggested that McGraw was perhaps overextending his brand name into an already saturated market.51 McGraw, however, effectively changed weight loss terminology to create his own niche. According to McGraw his plan is not a diet but a lifestyle change. The use of this terminology not only differentiates McGraw from other weight loss gurus, but also places weight loss under the McGraw umbrella of personal problems that a life strategist can help solve. Supporting McGraw’s claim to a superior weight loss method, program participants often speak of failed diets. For example McGraw asks Mike, a participant, “You’d been on every diet there was, right?” Mike replies, “I’d been on so many diets that you know, when I finally found the right way to not be on a diet to change my lifestyle I went to the cabinet in my bathroom and it took almost a trash bag just to get rid of things didn’t work for me.” These comments on failed diets are often followed by participants testifying to the effectiveness of McGraw’s life strategy.

[30] In both interviews and clips, participants routinely promote McGraw’s books. According to them, reading these books resulted in transformative experiences not unlike the reading of religious literature.  For example, commenting on her perception of herself Joy states,

My lowest moment was realizing that I was so big that you couldn’t miss me yet I was invisible.  I purchased Self Matters and started this healing process that I had no idea was leading me to a complete life change . . . When I purchased the book the Ultimate Weight Solutions and got to the second key this light bulb went on. I’m going to be successful this time. This is not just another diet. 

Participants often used words like “healed” when describing the transformation of self that they experience. These comments double as selling propositions and testimony. While references to McGraw’s books are found in every segment of the show, the selling intent is buried in religious/therapeutic language.

[31] The entire fourth segment of the show is a promotion for his son’s book: The Ultimate Weight Solution for Teens (2003). Here, McGraw “checks in” with his son Jay at a Dallas high school. Jay comments,

I think that parents should go get the book and read it and then give it to their kids.  I think every parent should because your teenagers may not have a weight issue and a body issue but I’m gonna bet that they have a body image issue.

At the end of the show, copies of the book are left under the audience’s chairs. Self-promotion is read as an act of concern, care and altruism. The loop of praise between McGraw and participants closes off criticism. Participants constantly express their gratitude to McGraw. Amy states,

I’ve lost 153 pounds with his help with the book and the exercise, I feel like a whole new person. I can walk. I can hold my head up.  I just want to thank Dr. Phil for helping me change my life. 

Whether or not participants are cynical or sincere actors doesn’t matter. What is essential is that their statements can be arranged and edited to support the spectacle itself. Debord argued that a central component of spectacle is self-laudatory monologue.52  Here, it is as if self-praise entered an echo chamber. Testament is reproduced in every facet of the show.

[32] Not unlike the infomercial, the testament of participants is supported by visual evidence of quantitative transformation. Audiences must be able to see a product work; there must be measurable, viewable results. Visual evidence of weight loss is supported by before and after photographs. These images are always framed by positive audience reactions and compliments from McGraw.

Dr. Phil:  Well stand right there and let’s get a before and after shot of this girl.  Hold on, hold on.  Man, that is amazing.

Dr. Phil: If you think Joy’s 98 pound weight loss is incredible and it is, wait until you hear Amy’s story.  She lost 152 pounds and over a hundred inches.  Take a look. 

Dr. Phil: Wow, OK. Well. Amy stand up.  Can we see Amy before all of this started and can we see her now?  Oh my god. 

Before a participant is brought on stage, a montage of the participant’s struggle is shown. Although constructed, these montages are given the appearance of the Real. They are shot in the participant’s home, often include other family members, are given a narrative, and most importantly are personally narrated by the participant. Likewise, they are photographed using hyperreal cinematic codes.

Joy (voice-over montage): My name is Joy and I’m 30 years old.  When I started Dr. Phil’s program I weighed 238 pounds and now I weigh 140.  Look Dr. Phil, I used to wear a size 20 and now I wear a size 8.  I have tried every diet.  As soon as I would go off the diet I would gain back all of the weight plus some.  

Even though the artificial commercial intent is obvious with a minimum of critical distance, because the montage is enunciated in a “this is my life” voice, it is both authentic and authenticating. The montage is the reference point, the visual ground to judge the degree of transformation.

[33] Mol describes conversion as the expression of a new identity in which the convert reorganizes her life along a new set of principles.

Conversion is to the person what charisma is to the social group.  It is the means by which a new perspective becomes emotionally anchored in the personality; which is unified in the process.  The convert feels that he has obtained a new identity, and very often he strengthens his new assumptive world by repeating over and over again how evil, or disconsolate, or inadequate he was before the conversion took place.  Conversion then is the adoption of a new orientation, a re-ordering of priorities and values. 53

Testimony is the expression of this new identity. It proclaims the new self.

[34] What makes The Dr. Phil Show something more than an infomercial? The transformative experience evidenced by weight loss and life style change is located in a deeper sense of self. Although this is only superficially articulated, it is expressed as a celebratory shared moment.  Joy states, “I’m going to be healed and I’m going to be a completely different person on the other end.” Amy follows with similar experience of self-transformation. “I’ve lost 153 pounds with his help with the book and the exercise, I feel like a whole new person, I can walk, I can hold my head up.”  Mike likewise celebrates a new sense of self. “I’m a new man.  I’m a new person.  And I have to thank you.”

[35] McGraw himself plays the central role in the conversion narrative—he listens, diagnoses, prescribes, cures, and validates. Moreover, he oversees production.54  He “provides imperative guidelines for behavior, inhibiting impulses and producing structure and stability, all with the promise of protection from an omnipotent authority.”55 As part and parcel of this spectacle, McGraw dons the role of Dr. Phil and becomes the charismatic “father figure, a new authority from which the follower eagerly accepts a new interpretation of both the past and the future.”56 Charisma is produced within the codes of entertainment television. Mimicking Sports Center’s introductory graphics, hugs and hand shakes replace dunks and home runs to establish McGraw as a dynamic personality in the opening credits. Cutaways to an applauding audience follow.  The production of charisma is routinized by a set of televisual marketing techniques. A simulated conversion experience is constructed to serve as a witnessing narrative that in turn functions to build sign value for the Dr. Phil brand. What is important here is how the conversion experience has been orchestrated into a marketing strategy. Dr. Phil claims knowledge that the participant lacks, makes judgments on behaviors, and bestows blessings on those who promise to mend their errant ways. He is a Weberian charismatic leader with a rational organization—this is exactly what capitalism is about today: a sign economy based on fabricated charisma.

[36] Charisma is not a personal characteristic but a relational category.  Produced within the codes of television, it relies on intermediaries as well as the audience. The Weight Loss Challenge provides intermediaries: the thirteen participants serve as Dr. Phil’s inner circle, McGraw’s chosen ones. Their comments and experiences, their successes and failures, are constructed into montages and played on programs. Their biographies are found on Dr. Phil.com. Appearing regularly, they sit in the first row of the audience as McGraw often imparts knowledge through interactions with them. These participants return weekly and speak of their progress. In the final episode of their weight loss saga, they are showered with not only gifts but also potentially new lives (would-be actors and actresses are given bit parts on shows). Most importantly, by exposing their personal problems, they function as apostolic figures of identification for audiences. For example, when Joy is brought on stage, she states, “My emotions. I had some real problems with how I felt about myself, my self esteem, things that had happened to me in my past. I really identified with Anne Marie. Had a similar situation as a child, was raped and needed to get past that.” These participants serve as conduits through which identification takes place. These conduits extend well beyond the thirteen participants. Listserv discussants often express similar forms of identification with other program participants. Charisma is thus channeled through participants who testify to the power of McGraw’s advice.

[37] Moreover, charisma is supported by an audience. Cutaways to expressive audience members are standard fare in this genre. Their nods and smiles function to authenticate participant/McGraw interactions. They stand in for the televisual audience and function to reaffirm the narrative. These moments are interspersed to give weight to the witnessing narrative.57 Like a laugh track, cutaways are manufactured affect. They function to direct an audience down a particular narrative path. They not only affirm McGraw’s strategic advice, but also a moral position.  Witnessing is spread across both participants and audience.

The Conversion Experience as Entertainment Spectacle

[38] The crisis of modernity is often associated with the process of secularization defined by Berger as the “process by which sectors of society and culture are removed from the domination of religious institutions and symbols.”58  Compounding this shift, sociologists decry the erosion of both community and tradition resulting in increasing privatization. How does the individual combat the anxieties that ensue when collective meaning and moral certainty weakens?59 Theories of religion have posited two arguments with respect to this modern dilemma. On the one hand, they express disenchantment with the modern and often mythologized pre-modern social formations.60 Here, the "juggernaut" of modernity driven by capital follows its own logic and gobbles up all social and cultural formations that attempt to hinder its progress. On the other hand, theories of secularization have been countered by theories of re-sacralization. Theorists point both to backlashes against modernity (i.e., jihadic movements) and to the rise of new forms of religious expression emphasizing both the need for “functional equivalents” to satisfy spiritual needs and new found agency in converts who now choose their religion (new religious movements as well as  New Age movements).61 Does The Dr. Phil Show re-sacralize the world of its participants and viewers by producing a sense of moral certainty, self-empowerment and community? Or does The Dr. Phil Show fall into the realm of the profane? Is it just another capitalist enterprise that thrives on social dislocation (anomie), privatization, and feelings of disempowerment and disenchantment?

[39] The line between the sacred and secular/profane becomes even more blurred in postmodernity. According to Zygmunt Bauman,

Postmodern cultural pressures, while intensifying the search for ‘peak experiences,’ have at the same time uncoupled the search from religion prone interests and concerns, privatized it, and cast mainly non-religious institutions in the role of purveyors of relevant services.”62

Religion and its discursive structures have moved into the marketplace and are being subjected to and reinscribed within its logic.63 Beckford further theorizes that, “variants on ideas of spiritual and religious liberation have seeped into sundry spheres of life to the point where, for example, management training programmes, therapeutic practices, new social movements and ‘human resource management’ schemes have appropriated them.”64  This shift from an other-worldly to a this-worldly concern is expressed as the drift of religion into the realm of the therapeutic.

In new religious movements of Christian persuasion (especially in charismatic movements which show the influence of psychology and human relationship theories) the perspective is usually reversed:  the theme of salvation no longer refers to the (culturally devalued) expectation of a full life in another world; it functions as a symbolic marker enhancing the hope of being healed in all aspects of self-realization.  In this individualistic reinterpretation of the link between salvation and healing, it is the vision of salvation that becomes a metaphor for healing, a means of expressing the extent of personal regeneration—physical, psychic and moral—implied here and now by the fact of being healed (in a way that is beyond the power of modern medicine, highly specialized and technicized as it is.65

[40] Theorizing the cultural shift from heavenly salvation to earthly self-actualization, Lears argued that during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there was a weakening of repressive religious formations and the subsequent emergence of a therapeutic ethos. Lears associates this shift with the rise of medicine and psychology, increased urban living and the feelings of being over-civilized, the rise of bureaucracy and the decline of the autonomous self, and an increasing prevalence of advertising messages associating consumption with self-actualization.66

[41] Likewise, Bellah posits the growing dominance of a therapeutic discourse.67 He locates the rise of the therapeutic in an excessive individualization associated more with privatization rather than freedom. Therapeutic discourse permeates work, home, family, friendship, and functions to reduce the anxiety associated with a moral uncertainty resulting from the weakening of tradition and community. Bellah further notes that therapeutic discourse is underscored by a utilitarian trajectory that blends a reflexivity focused on “feelings” with a cost-benefit analysis of the relationships that sustain them.68 Referring to this relational model as therapeutic contractualism, he draws parallels between therapeutic discourse and managerial discourse in which “the purely contractual structure of the economic and bureaucratic world is becoming an ideological model for personal life.”69  The emergence of therapeutic discourse is a response to the expansion of the service of economy of late capitalism in which both therapy and managerial skills demand a self-surveillance grounded on “an acute concern for the monitoring and managing of inner feelings and emphasizes their expression in open communication.”70

Anxiety and uncertainty about more important and enduring relationships are increasing rather than decreasing.  Therapists have grown increasingly concerned about the lack of “community” in modern life, and, as we have seen in our discussion of the therapeutic quest for community, have often suggested that people need to “reconnect” to families, join a church, or become involved in political activity.  These admonitions suggest that therapy cannot really replace older forms of relationship, but must somehow seek to reinvigorate them.  Yet, as we have seen, the very language of therapeutic relationship seems to undercut the possibility of other than self-interested relationships.71

Monadic concerns for intimacy and personal success legitimized under the guise of self-fulfillment fail to provide the necessary grounding found in community, religion and family.

[42] Furedi’s recent attacks on the pervasiveness of therapy echo Bellah’s analysis. Furedi, however, positions therapeutic culture, particularly self-help movements, as rechannelling social problems into private troubles and away from political action. Therapeutic discourse functions to label and control even minor forms of deviance.72 It is this dilemma that The Dr. Phil Show addresses. It is also the contradiction that undergirds the narrative structure of the show, further contradicted by the logic of spectacle that underwrites television programming. On the one hand, The Dr. Phil Show reflects needs for moral certainty, self-empowerment, fulfillment and community in a volatile anomic social world. It offers a philosophy and a community that support these needs. It functions as a community of support for a range of self-transformations. On the other hand, the show is a media spectacle driven by the logic of capital. Its primary goal is to create value as quickly and efficiently as possible. It subscribes to the same logic that erodes traditional institutions, such as religion, family and community, producing privatization and the rise of a therapeutic culture. Conversion is the entry narrative, the rite of passage into this ambivalent commodity form. Moreover, the solutions offered reaffirm a politically and socially conservative ethos that functions to provide a sense of moral certainty for the show’s audience.

[43] We argue that this contradiction plays out both in the substance of McGraw’s discourse and in the structure of his shows. Not dissimilar to religious narrative, McGraw's media-determined conversion narrative provides moral certainty, self-fulfillment and empowerment, and a feeling of community. His interactions with participants, supported by the confessional montage followed by testimonies of transformation, produce a commonsense certainty that puts order back into the ambiguity of everyday life. The acceptance of his prescriptions by participants, supported by audience reactions, reenacts the religious conversion on the television stage. Each program reaffirms the social, not unlike religious rites theorized by Durkheim.

Producing Moral Authority

[44] Luckmann notes that “moralizing discourse takes many forms”—the sermon, the political speech, domestic encounters, etc.73The Dr. Phil Show is a moralizing discourse. It is McGraw’s authoritarian style, his absolute certainty that appeals to audiences. “Tell it like is” or “Get real” are trademark slogans associated with McGraw. For Luckmann, moralizing discourse both blames and praises, and threatens and appeals.74 Essentially, an oppositional binary is constructed by the speaker. The listener is expected to accept the moral dichotomy presented by the speaker and move to the moral/good side of the binary. While sermons use examples to personalize and concretize the moral abstraction, The Dr. Phil Show presents streamlined case studies of onstage participants. Moralizing discourse produces a binary that disguises the multiple contradictory discourses that interweave through the binary. The Dr. Phil Show blends rational-utilitarian, therapeutic, bio-medical, colloquial, personal narrative, commercial, and religious moral discourses within a heavily scripted televisual environment determined by the media market measured in ratings and shares and the sale of paraphernalia. Like an alchemist, McGraw’s authority is based on his adroit style of mixing and calling forth the appropriate discursive expertise. For example, positioning himself a life coach “who tells it like it is” and who provides step-by-step solutions to problems, he often criticizes the therapeutic as soft and fuzzy. And yet, he we will argue for the necessity of getting to know the true self, “what I call the authentic self.” McGraw’s discourse is primarily a rational-utilitarian discourse; it is played out in the conversion narrative. His ten steps program (referred to the Ten Laws of Life) defines the path to return to a healthy life, to re-enter the fold.75 Moreover, televisual charisma mixes with his rational discourse to create a form of social control. McGraw offers a strengthened ego shored up by his totemic authority. McGraw himself states, “I can be a great ally, but I can also be a powerful enemy.” He prescribes his rules for participants and audiences, necessitating self-surveillance. Offering a religious asceticism based on self-transformation, McGraw produces a highly seductive form of the iron cage.

Producing Empowerment

[45] The Dr. Phil Show creates a televisual space designed for women to air “problems in their lives.” McGraw hails women as “incredibly important,” regardless of how their spouses, children and/or bosses might make them feel. He constantly states that women need "to put themselves first.” Although the position of women is idealized, empowerment strategies usually function within the parameter of relationality. “Relationship rescue” is a recurring phrase that defines the limits of female concern and power.  Moreover, the “space of support” is a market-driven entertainment spectacle. The women on the show, as well as in the audience, are simultaneously situated as potentially empowered women, data for market research, consumers of Dr. Phil brand products, and dutiful wives and mothers. Before one enters the conversion narrative, one is positioned as disempowered, i.e., unable to control one’s weight, one’s addictions, or one’s relationships. At the end of the conversion narrative lie feelings of self-empowerment, the ability to take control of one’s own life. Confession speaks to one’s own failure and lack of agency; testimony speaks to a reborn, empowered self. While men occasionally take centre stage, they are almost always positioned in a relationship in which their primary role is to provide support for their spouse as she moves through the narrative. While McGraw offers empowerment for viewers and participants, his discourse and ensuing strategies serve patriarchal ends.76 We have that argued McGraw himself is positioned by his own rhetoric, his personal style, and the codes of the media spectacle as a celebrity totem. While McGraw stresses agency and self-empowerment, the chosen path leads the participant into the centre of the hegemony.

Producing Community

[46] Durkheim argued that religious rites establish a binary, separating the sacred from the profane. Both positive and negative rites function to renew the commitment to religion (the social) in what Durkheim saw as an increasingly utilitarian world.77 However, since Durkheim sees religious forces and their capacity to sacralize “the world” as always already social, these sacralizations are theoretically displaced from the taken-for-granted symbolizations of transcendence current in any historical group into the realm of social immanence from which they initially emerged.  Society turns back upon itself—not without risk—to selectively ratify its own mundane pursuits through varied sacralizations, even while the social actor believes – not wholly in vain—that “higher” forces are at work.78  The Dr. Phil Show produces an imagined virtual community organized around chat rooms, a listserv, commodities and public appearances and televised appearances. It exists as a community of support. The Dr. Phil Show re-sacralizes the world by reproducing the social.  The conversion narrative, whether it is performed in front of a television audience, given expression on a listserv, verbalized by an audience member at a McGraw public presentation, or acted out in the privacy of one’s home, serves as an entry practice into this community. The boundaries between social/sacred and the secular/profane are formed by the conversion narrative—the confessional montage, McGraw’s prescriptions, and the testimony, seconded by media-driven cutaways to the audience.  Where does the profane exist in the world of Dr. Phil?  Outside the hegemony. It exists in overweight bodies, drug use, addiction, non-monogamous relationships, and in the unnamed psychological disorders that determine these conditions. Conversion is a return to the hegemony of the social and to a renewed self, predicated on the needs of late capitalism.

[47] McGraw is able seamlessly to blend his success in the media market dictated by the logics of spectacle with capital and expressions of a concerned all-knowing authority on relationality and self-fulfillment. Capital in this guise has appropriated community and the entry narrative of conversion. While one might argue that The Dr. Phil Show is the profane, there appears to be little critical ground to stand on when morality, empowerment, and community, that which the sacred signifies, have been so totally appropriated. The Dr. Phil Show reflects the power of capital-driven media to appropriate and to juxtapose contradictory discourses.

Notes

1 We would like to thank our reviewers for their helpful comments. We also want to thank Rita Hewlett for her skillful copy edits.

2 Demographically speaking, target audiences for most talk television are women between the ages of 30-45 (with the exception of Jerry Springer). The Dr. Phil Show is no different. Given the investment television executives and advertisers have in creating and sustaining markets, it should come as no surprise that most topics and concerns on talk television are geared toward women (Manga 2003, 45). 

3 Phil C. McGraw, Life Strategies: Doing What Works, Doing What Matters (New York: Hyperion Books, 1999), 258-9.

4 McGraw, Life Strategies, 21.

5 Emile Durkheim The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1954), 465-67.

6 Zygmunt Bauman, “Postmodern Religion?” Religion, Modernity and Postmodernity. Ed. Paul Heelas (New York: Blackwell, 1998), 68.

7 Bauman, “Postmodern Religion?”,69.

8 Julie Manga, Talking Trash: The Cultural Politics of Daytime Television (New York: New York University Press, 2003), 5; Linda Grindstaff, The Money Shot: Trash, Class and the Making of TV Talk Shows (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 22; John Dovey, Freakshow: First Person Media and Factual Television (London: Pluto Press, 2002), 103-114; Joshua Gamson, Freaks Talk Back: Tabloid Talk Shows and Sexual Nonconformity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 14; Vicki Abt and Leonard Mustazza, ComingAfter Oprah: Cultural Fallout in the Age of the TV Talk Show (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State Press, 1997), 3.

9 There are, of course, similarities between Dr. Phil and other "trash" talk television shows. For example, both offer "help" and both are at base about entertainment. Moreover, as Manga argues, talk shows serve as a place where the television viewer (particularly those in marginal positions) can relate to participants and thus they may view the shows as a space of legitimate public discourse. We have no doubt that a similar mechanism may be at work on The Dr. Phil Show; however, we are less interested in audience reception of the Dr. Phil and more interested in the semiotics of the narratives present in the show.

10 We are less concerned with how individuals on the show come to make meaning of their experience or in the audience reception of the show and are more interested in the narrative and the cinematic structures of the show and how discourse is compressed or made to fit into these structures.

11 This form of narrative analysis is less common in sociological contexts and more common in communication studies. Our use of this form of narrative analysis is heavily influenced by Mimi White’s work on therapeutic discourses in American media (Mimi. White, Tele-Advising: Therapeutic Discourse in American Television [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992], 19).

12 Simulation replaces “actual” events or objects with their virtual electronic signs and image counterparts. According to Baudrillard, simulation is different from a lie or fiction, because it not only presents an absence as presence, the representation as the real, but also undermines the contrasts with the real through its absorption of the real.  William. Bogart, The Simulation of Surveillance: Hypercontrol in Telematic Societies (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 37-56;  Jean  Baudrillard, Simulation (New York: Semiotext[e], 1983), 45.

13 “Neilsen Ratings,” Broadcasting and Cable (1/19/2004), 31. One Nielsen rating point equals 1,084,000 households. This sample accounts for about one percent of households with televisions in the United States (Broadcasting and Cable 1/19/2004).

14 “Neilsen Ratings” Broadcasting and Cable 2/16/04, 29.

15 Steve McClellan, “Syndie Spots Pass $200K Mark,” Broadcasting and Cable (January 12, 2004), 28.

16 John Bauman, “Postmodern Religion?”: A Study of Conversion, Proselytization, and Maintenance of Faith (New York: Irvington Press, 1977), 34-49; Rodney Stark and Roger Finke, Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion (Berkley, CA: University of California Press, 2000), 114-25.

17 Bauman, “Postmodern Religion?” , 34.

18 Bauman, “Postmodern Religion?”, 57.

19Stark and Finke, 114-125; Malcom Hamilton, Sociology of Religion: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 2001), 260-68.

20 Hamilton, Sociology of Religion, 260-268.

21 White, Tele-Advising, 111.

22 White, 156; Steve Bruce, Pray TV: Televangelism in America (New York: Routledge, 1990), 35.

23 Jeffery Hayden and Charles Swann, Prime Time Preachers: The Rising Power of Televangelism (London: Addison Wesley Press, 1981), 16.

24 Bruce, Pray TV, 39.

25 Hayden and Swann, Prime Time Preachers, 12.

26 Hayden and Swann, Prime Time Preachers, 12-13.

27 White, Tele-Advising, 117.

28 White, Tele-Advising, 114; Bruce, Pray TV, 4; Hadden and Swann, Prime Time Preachers, 12; Walter H. Capps, The New Religious Right: Piety, Patriotism, and Politics  (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1990), 24; Razelle Frankl, Televangelism: The Marketing of Popular Religion (Carbondale, Il: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987),  123-24.

29 Sophia Dembling and Lisa Gutierrez, The Making of Dr. Phil: The Straight Talking True Story of Everyone’s Favorite Therapist (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons Press, 2004), 138.

30 Frankl, Televangelism, 119.

31 Frankl, Televangelism, 119-120.

32 Susan F. Harding, "Convicted by the Holy Spirit: The Rhetoric of Fundamental Baptist Conversion," American Ethnologist 4 (1987), 167.

33 William Labov, Language in the Inner City: Studies in Black English Vernacular (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1972), 360; William Labov, “Speech Actions and Reactions in Personal Narratives,” Analyzing Discourse: Text and Talk, ed. Deborah Tannen (Washington,  DC: Georgetown University Press, 1982), 235; Eliot Mishler, “The Analysis of Interview-Narratives,” Narrative Psychology: The Storied Nature of Human Conduct, ed. Theodore. R. Sarbin (New York: Praeger, 1986), 37; Catherine Riessman, Narrative Analysis (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1993), 17.

34 Clifford Geertz, “Religion as a Cultural System,” Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion Ed. Michael Banton, (New York: Praeger, 1966), 3-4.

35 John Dovey, Freakshow: First Person Media and Factual Television (London: Pluto Press, 2002), 105-12.

36 Dovey, Freakshow, 113.

37 We are less concerned with how individuals on the show come to make meaning of their experience or in the audience reception to the show and than we are interested in the narrative and the cinematic structures of the show and how discourse is compressed or made to fit into these structures.

38 According to Anderson, a community "is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion”; Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso Press, 1991),  6.

39 Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: Volume One: An Introduction (New York: Vintage Press, 1990), 60.

40 Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 61-2.

41 Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 29.

42 White, Tele-Advising, 9.

43 Jean Baudrillard, “Dust Breeding,” C Theorywww.ctheory.net (2001), 2.

44 White, Tele-Advising, 19; Dovey, Freakshow, 107.The allure of this form of public confession may range from the desire for fifteen minutes of fame, an ever-increasing culture of narcissism as Lasch argues, to what Gamson and Manga refer to as the desire to have a voice in a public forum as access to the public dialogue shrinks due privatization. Unfortunately, it is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the lure of the show for guests. To do so, would require intensive interview data with former guests.  Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations (New York: Warner Books, 1979), 48-54; Gamson, Freaks Talk Back, 138; Manga, Talking Trash, 54.

45 White, Tele-Advising, 10. It is important to note that White’s research focuses more on the links between the confessional and therapeutic discourses in the media. While we find her argument compelling, and we in fact do find therapeutic discourse in The Dr. Phil Show, we found that the structure of conversion was far more prevalent. Unfortunately due to space limitations, we cannot provide a prolonged discussion of the therapeutic discourses found in the show. 

46 Again it is important to remember that these shows are meant to entertain and the show being aired has been subject to editing (this is evident with cutaway shots, shifts in camera angles, etc.) and thus are not in vivo narratives.

47 White, Tele-Advising, 130.

48 White, Tele-Advising, 131.

49 White, Tele-Advising, 131.

50 Wendy Kaminer, I’m Dysfunctional, Your Dysfunctional: The Recovery Movement and Other Self Help Fashions (New York: Madison Wesley Press, 1992), 6.

51 Sherri Day, “Dr. Phil, Medicine Man,” New York Times (October 27, 2003), C 2, 1.

52 Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle (Detroit: Red & Black, 1977), 24.

53 Hans Mol, Identity and the Sacred: A Sketch for a New Social Scientific Theory of Religion (New York: Free Press, 1976), 50-1.

54 Dembling and Gutierrez, The Making of Dr. Phil, 161.

55 Chana Ullman, The Transformed Self: The Psychology of Religious Conversion (New York: Plenum Press, 1989), 54.

56 Mol, Identity and the Sacred, 45.

57 Heather Hendershot, “Virgins for Jesus: The Gender Politics of Therapeutic Christian Fundamentalist Media,” Hop On Pop: The Politics and Pleasure of Popular Culture, ed. Henry Jenkins, et al. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), 93.

58 Peter Berger, The Social Reality of Religion, (London: Faber and Faber Press, 1960), 107.

59 Berger, Social Reality, 27-36; Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (New York: Avon, 1965), 157-62; Daniele Hervieu-Leger, Religion as a Chain of Memory (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000), 23-41.

60 Bryan Wilson, “Salvation, Secularization, and Demoralization,” The Blackwell Companion: The Sociology of Religion, ed. Richard Fenn (New York: Blackwell Press, 2003), 43-8.

61 Paul Heelas, “Introduction,” Religion, Modernity and Postmodernity, ed. Paul Heelas, (New York: Blackwell Press, 1998), 4-6.

62 Bauman, “Postmodern Religion?”70.

63 Bauman, “Postmodern Religion?”73.

64 James Beckford, Social Theory and Religion (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 127.

65 Hervieu-Leger, Religion as a Chain of Memory, 139.

66 T.J. Jackson Lears, “From Salvation to Self Realization: Advertising and the Therapeutic Roots of the Consumer Culture, 1880-1930,” The Culture of Consumption: Critical Essays in American History, 1880-1980, ed. Richard Fox and T.J. Jackson Lears (New York: Pantheon Books, 1983), 6-17.

67 Robert Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (New York: Harper and Row, 1985), 131-150.

68 Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart 126.

69 Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart 128.

70 Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart 138.

71 Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart 139.

72 Frank Furedi, Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age. (London: Routledge, 2004), 66-84.

73 Thomas Luckmann, “Moralizing Sermons, Then and Now,” The Blackwell Companion: The Sociology of Religion Ed. Richard Fenn, (New York: Blackwell Press. 2003), 388-89.

74 Luckmann, “Moralizing Sermons, Then and Now,” 388.

75 McGraw, 1999; see Table of Contents and back cover.

76 Here, we might distinguish between Oprah Winfrey and McGraw. McGraw was first introduced to television audiences on Oprah as a tough talking “tell it like it is” life strategist. While McGraw draws heavily on traditional codes of patriarchy and speaks with authority, Winfrey is the Über-empath who not only listens with concern, but appears to share any pain that her guests have experienced.

77 Durkheim, Elementary Forms,  299-309.  

78 Donald A Nielsen, “The Transformation of Society and the Sacred in Durkheim’s Religious Sociology,” The Blackwell Companion: The Sociology of Religion. Ed. Richard Fenn (New York: Blackwell Press, 2003), 120-32.

Bibliography

Abt, Vicki and Mustazza, Leonard. ComingAfter Oprah: Cultural Fallout in the Age of the TV Talk Show. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State Press, 1997.

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. New York: Verso Press, 1991.

Baudrillard, Jean. “Dust Breeding.” C Theory. www.ctheory.net, 2001, 1-4.

Baudrillard, Jean.  Simulations. New York: Semiotext(e), 1983.

Bauman, Zygmunt. “Postmodern Religion?” Religion, Modernity and Postmodernity. Ed.

Paul Heelas. New York: Blackwell Press, 1998, 55-78.

Beckford, James. Social Theory and Religion. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Bellah, Robert et. al. Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. New York: Harper and Row, 1985.

Berger, Peter. The Social Reality of Religion. London: Faber and Faber Press, 1969.

Bogart, William. The Simulation of Surveillance: Hypercontrol in Telematic Societies. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.

Bruce, Steve. Pray TV: Televangelism in America. New York: Routledge, 1990.

Day, Sherri. “Dr. Phil, Medicine Man.” New York Times. October 27 2003: C 2, 1.

Dembling, Sophia and Gutierrez, Lisa. The Making of Dr. Phil: The Straight Talking True Story of Everyone’s Favorite Therapist. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2004.

Debord, Guy. Society of the Spectacle. Detroit: Red & Black, 1977.

Dovey, John. Freakshow: First Person Media and Factual Television. London: Pluto Press, 2002.

Durkheim, Emile The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1954.  

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: Volume One: An Introduction. New York: Vintage, Press, 1990.

Frankl, Razelle. Televangelism: The Marketing of Popular Religion. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987.

Fromm, Erich. Escape from Freedom. New York: Avon, 1965.

Furedi, Frank. Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age. London: Routledge, 2004.

Gamson, Joshua. Freaks Talk Back: Tabloid Talk Shows and Sexual Nonconformity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Geertz, Clifford. “Religion as a Cultural System.” Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion.Ed. Michael Banton. New York: Praeger, 1966, 1-44.

Grindstaff, Linda. The Money Shot: Trash, Class and the Making of TV Talk Shows. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.

Hadden, Jeffery and Swann, Charles. Prime Time Preachers: The Rising Power of Televangelism. London: Addison Wesley Press, 1981.

Harding, Susan F. "Convicted by the Holy Spirit: The Rhetoric of Fundamental Baptist Conversion." American Ethnologist 4, 1987, 167-80.

Heelas, Paul. “Introduction.” Religion, Modernity and Postmodernity. Ed. Paul Heelas. New York: Blackwell Press, 1998, 1-18.

Hendershot, Heather. "Virgins for Jesus: The Gender Politics of Therapeutic Christian Fundamentalist Media.” Hop On Pop: The Politics and Pleasure of Popular Culture. Ed. Henry Jenkins, et al. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002, 88-104.

Hervieu-Leger, Daniele. Religion as a Chain of Memory. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000.

Kaminer, Wendy. I’m Dysfunctional, Your Dysfunctional: The Recovery Movement and Other Self Help Fashions. New York: Madison Wesley Press, 1992.

Lasch, Christopher. The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. New York: Warner Books, 1979.

Labov, William. Language in the Inner City: Studies in Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1972.

Labov, William. “Speech Actions and Reactions in Personal Narratives.” Analyzing Discourse: Text and Talk. Ed. Deborah Tannen. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1982.

Lears, T.J. Jackson “From Salvation to Self Realization: Advertising and the Therapeutic Roots of the Consumer Culture, 1880-1930.” The Culture of Consumption: Critical Essays in American History, 1880-1980. Ed. Richard Fox and T.J. Jackson Lears. New York: Pantheon Books, 1983, 1-38.

Loftland, John. Doomsday Cult: A Study of Conversion, Proselytization, and Maintenance of Faith. New York: Irvington Press, 1977.

Luckmann, Thomas. “Moralizing Sermons, Then and Now.”  The Blackwell Companion: The Sociology of Religion. Ed. Richard Fenn. New York: Blackwell Press, 2003, 388-403.

Manga, Julie. Talking Trash: The Cultural Politics of Daytime Television. New York: New York University Press, 2003.

McClellan, Steve. “Syndie Spots Pass $200K Mark.” Broadcasting and Cable. January 12, 2004: 28.

McGraw, Jay. The Ultimate Weight Loss Solution for Teens: The 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom. New York: Free Press, 2003.

McGraw, Phil C. Life Strategies: Doing What Works, Doing What Matters. New York: Hyperion Books, 1999.

______.  The Ultimate Weight Solution: The 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom. New York: Free Press, 2003.

______.  Self Matters: Creating Your Life from the Inside Out. New York: Free Press, 2003.

______. Relationship Rescue. New York: Hyperion Press, 2001.

Mishler, Eliot. “The Analysis of Interview-Narratives.” Narrative Psychology: The Storied Nature of Human Conduct. Ed. Theodore. R. Sarbin. New York: Praeger, 1986.

Mol, Hans. Identity and the Sacred: A Sketch for a New Social Scientific Theory of Religion. New York: Free Press, 1976.

Nielsen, Donald A. “The Transformation of Society and the Sacred in Durkheim’s Religious Sociology,” The Blackwell Companion: The Sociology of Religion. Ed. Richard Fenn. New York: Blackwell Press. 2003. 120-132.

“Neilsen Ratings.” Broadcasting and Cable. January 19, 2004, 31.

“Neilsen Ratings.” Broadcasting and Cable. February 16, 2004, 29.

Riessman, Catherine. Narrative Analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Press, 1993.

Shattuc, Jane. The Talking Cure: TV Talk Shows and Women. New York: Routledge, 1996.

Stark, Rodney and Roger Finke. Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion. Berkley, CA: University of California Press, 2000.

Ullman, Chana. The Transformed Self: The Psychology of Religious Conversion. New York: Plenum Press, 1989.

White, Mimi. Tele-Advising: Therapeutic Discourse in American Television. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992.

Wilson, Bryan. “Salvation, Secularization, and Demoralization.” The Blackwell Companion: The Sociology of Religion. Ed. Richard Fenn. New York: Blackwell Press, 2003, 39-51.