Dr. Phil offers more home-spun advice for feuding family members

I enjoy family feud episodes like today’s Sister in Law from Hell because Dr. Phil is really in his element. Guests whip themselves into a Jerry Springer-esque frenzy and Dr. Phil turns down the volume with rhetorical questions like: Do I look stupid to you? No seriously, did someone tell you I wasn’t very smart? I’ve yet to see someone reply, “Actually Dr. Phil, I met 10 people waiting in line this morning who said you weren’t very smart.” But no one ever acts defiant; individual family members are too busy justifying their own point of view. In-law strife episodes have been cloned hundreds of times with different families, but there was so much animosity between today’s family, I think Dr. Phil could not afford the liability of tossing them into “The Dr. Phil House” and letting nature take its course. Dr. P made it clear that if they sit on his stage, they become his “teaching tools.” So what is the difference between a teaching tool and a guinea pig?

Bottom line: No single person is the the only cause of family chaos. Take ownership of your role in creating the drama and kicking up the rhetoric.

Dr. Phil-ism: I tell ya’ if insight was lard, I couldn’t drink a skillet out of the whole bunch. Translation please?

PJ