Dr Phil got no clue
This article by Dr Piotr Wozniak is part of SuperMemo Guru series on memory, learning, creativity, and problem solving.
Dr Phil McGraw is the Trump of Psychotherapy. His success is based on the same qualities as that of Donald Trump's: fast thinking, gross generalization, lack of interest in detail, sexy phraseology, and unwavering self-confidence stemming from an inner bully. That makes for a good show. He feeds on the same audience as Trump: well-schooled masses.
Dr Phil Show is interesting, but I have never been a fan. I struggle with sympathy in the aura of low empathy. Dr Phil lost me some two decades ago when he admitted to never really caring about the inner needs and problems of his patients. He said:
A couple would come in and they'd start bitchin' and whinin' and after 10 minutes, I'm like, "My God, no wonder you people don't like each other, I can't stand either one of you!"
Dr Phil rarely does his homework. Like Trump, he likes things unscripted. When interviewing a radical unschooler Dayna Martin, his unpreparedness was so stark that I can confidently claim: When it comes to psychology of learning, I know more about Dr Phil's brain than he knows himself. Such a claim verges on serious arrogance, but if Dr Phil can practice psychotherapy without a license, why can't I engage in a bit of "psychoanalysis"?
When Dayna Martin mentioned that her kids learn on their own, using no schedule, no plan, no curriculum, and study things by just following their own learn drive, Dr Phil seemed perplexed, and voiced his skepticism. This is my rough rendition of his words:
I hated school. I hated every minute of my time at school. But if I did not go to school, today, I would be just a vegetable. I had no thirst for knowledge whatsoever. I just hated learning
He's got it all backwards. He hated learning because he was pushed at school. No kid hates learning for no reason. We have been designed to love learning.
Like many parents and teachers before and after, Dr Phil subscribes to the myth that kids are lazy and would never want to learn on their own. If Dr Phil had spent a few minutes reading about unschooling, having a peek at Peter Gray sites, or Danny Greenberg's essays, or books by John Taylor Gatto or John Holt, he would have known that we are all perfectly designed learning machines who lose our learn drive through coercive learning at school. Apparently, like Trump, Dr Phil is no fan of reading. If so, this must be a remnant of that hate for school. I also admit to a degree of school-induced reading phobia. However, thankfully, my phobia is limited to literary works of fiction, esp. classical texts by Polish literature giants. Those texts were used as a tool of torture at school. My brain has unjustly labelled those masterpieces as brainjunk. Today, I process mountains of texts with incremental reading. I have no issues with reading per se. This is how I know Dr Phil never studied his own brain and his youthful motivations. I had to do a bit of my own reckoning while writing Problem of schooling. This helped me overcome many myths inculcated in youth by the education system. I also believed in the good mission of schools, and how SuperMemo might make it even more impactful.
Dr Phil is lucky. He hated school, and hating school is a great defense against damage by school. If he obediently followed teacher instructions, he would have lost all his creative spirit and originality. Today, he might be just one of a thousand run-of-the-mill medical professionals with low empathy and limited passion for life. Instead, he capitalized on his best assets, like Donald Trump, and mastered the art of entertainment. We need less schooling, more creativity, and more people like Dr Phil. We only need to remember to take the good doctor with a pinch of salt. After all, his show brings a great deal of inspiration. His guest of he day, Dayna Martin joked about learning at school with words to that effect:
Learning can only happen when a child is interested. If he’s not interested, it’s like throwing marshmallows at his head and calling it "eating"
See also: Psychology 101 for Dr Phil: Unschooling FAQ