You complain that your boyfriend lies to you. "Is this your 'victim story'?" Dr. Phil asks you warily.
Your boyfriend admits to lying. "Is this something you do because you're gutless?" Dr. Phil sneers at him.
You want some advice? "Tell him, 'I'm not taking this from you anymore!'" Dr. Phil commands.
Mr. Manners he's not. Whether you're overweight, overworked or undersexed, Dr. Phil—host of his own top-rated TV talk show, advice columnist in O, The Oprah Magazine, best-selling author and full-throttle public personality—knows what's best and he's not afraid to tell you. Dr. Phil issues counsel as marching orders, and despite fiery disapproval from the chattering classes and many in the mental health community, his readers, viewers and even chagrined on-air guests love him for it.
Dr. Phil, aka Phillip C. McGraw, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist turned courtroom consultant turned Oprah-anointed self-help guru, didn't create the demand for quick-fix media therapy—he answered it. Dr. Phil is a far cry from the earnest concern of Ann Landers or the measured cluck-clucking of Dear Abby and their hospitable brand of social guidance. Perhaps the death of Eppie Lederer (aka "Ask Ann Landers") sealed the fate of the old-school advice columnist.
Likewise, "Dear Abby" is no longer written by Landers' twin sister Pauline, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease, but by Abby's daughter, Jeanne Phillips. In Ann's and Abby's stead, a new generation of advice givers is achieving multimedia popularity. While some accuse the new guard of confrontation for ratings' sake, and trumpet the dangers of not-so-nice-advice or advice without follow-up, their success may not be the death knell of sound counsel in the public arena.
"Advice giving is the oldest racket in the civilized world," says E. Jean Carroll, whose sharp-tongued, wisecracking advice column in Elle magazine has spawned numerous books, TV appearances and a Web site. "The Old Testament is nothing but advice on how to live, how to eat and how to marry." According to Carroll, advice has always been a literary form, a narrative and a source of entertainment. "All advice givers are essentially performers and writers before they are problem solvers, and that's what makes them so popular," she says.
The success of 21st century advice givers can be attributed in large part to changes in the way advice is conveyed. Rare is the columnist who in addition to a syndicated print outlet doesn't also have a Web site, several self-help books and a television show in the making. Ann Landers was identified at most by a grainy black-and-white photo. Dr. Laura Schlessinger, acerbic queen of the conservative airwaves, can be reached by TV or radio call-in, letter and e-mail. In their lust for the lucrative youth demographic, every media outlet has adopted an in-your-face MTV style, applied as equally by Dr. Phil as by reality TV programming.
Once, racked with fear and chagrin, a lonely spinster could anonymously write to Ann Landers for solace; MTV's 1990s advice show, Loveline, found Gen Y teens tripping over microphone cables to divulge details of their budding sex lives to co-host Dr. Drew, like so many bachelorettes clamoring for The Bachelor. People reveal their most private problems with a ripe eagerness that belies the schadenfreude of those who voyeuristically tune in. Neither party seems particularly prone to embarrassment, humiliation or, for heaven's sake, shame.
Given the proliferation of media outlets, it's no surprise to see a fragmented pool of advisers, each targeting a niche demographic—be it 20-somethings (Carolyn Hax and Harlan Cohen) or African-Americans (Harriet Cole). Not only do they cater to specific ages and ethnicities, they home in on psychographic profiles (hipster intellectuals for Slate's Dear Prudence, right-wing moralists for Dr. Laura, stylish urbanites for E. Jean Carroll) and subject matter (Dr. Joy Browne for the psychologically "stuck," Suze Orman for the financially insecure, Judge Judy for the legally challenged).
Their advice goes well beyond the etiquette imbroglio or family feud. The new advisers and "media psychologists" weigh in on the latest movies, diet fads and sexual techniques. They blurb books, explain pop culture phenomena and offer unsolicited counsel to celebrities in crisis.
But the ubiquity conferred by contemporary media is not the sole reason these advisers have triumphed in multiple domains. In today's savvy self-help culture, people are keen to outsource a wide array of their needs, from personal finance to parenting. Armed with more education and a better grip of psychological language, Americans' expectations are greater than they were in the 1950s and even the 1970s, when columnists patiently outlined basic psychological principles and helped de-stigmatize mental illness. Those Psych 101 lessons are now obsolete. People want direct, personalized ways to deal with their pushy mothers-in-law or their own obsessive behavior.
Advice from Ann and Abby and etiquette tips from Miss Manners have always reflected the social mores of their times more than the circumstances of a particular reader. They encouraged readers to adapt to others around them. "If Miss Manners tells you what's appropriate behavior, she's not diagnosing you, she's diagnosing the world," says Steven Berglas, a Los Angeles-based clinical psychologist and executive coach. "Dr. Phil offers a specific diagnosis. He says, 'This is what mentally healthy people do, therefore this is what you should do.'"
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