Bad Therapist

Rachel and Ash peer into the soul of Phil McGraw, Oprah's favorite straight-talking daytime TV  guru, who has more recently pivoted to pro-ICE content creator. Folksy animal metaphors abound.
 
Sources:
Phil McGraw, Self Matters: Creating Your Life From the Inside Out, https://shop.drphil.com/products/book-self-matters-creating-your-life-from-the-inside-out-studio
Sophia Dembling & Lisa Gutierrez, The Making of Dr Phil: The Straight-Talking True Story of Everyone's Favorite Therapist, https://www.strandbooks.com/the-making-of-dr-phil-the-straight-talking-true-story-of-everyone-s-favorite-therapist-9780471696599.html
David Armstrong and Evan Allen, "Dr. Phil says he rescues people from addiction. Others say his show puts guests' health at risk," Stat News & Boston Globe - https://www.statnews.com/2017/12/28/dr-phil-guests-say-show-risks-health-of-some-addicts/
David Armstrong and Evan Allen,  "How Dr. Phil's new addiction recovery venture trades on his TV show's marketing clout," Stat News & Boston Globe - https://www.statnews.com/2017/12/29/dr-phil-path-to-recovery/
Scaachi Koul, "Dr. Do Nothing," BuzzFeed News - https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/scaachikoul/dr-phil-mcgraw-mental-health-danielle-bregoli
Dennis Cass, "Dr. Phil Is a Softie," Slate - https://slate.com/culture/2003/10/dr-phil-s-fat-fighting-crusade.html
David K. Li, Janhvi Bhojwani and Toby Lyles, "How 'Dr. Phil' suddenly became so outspoken about immigration," NBC  - https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/dr-phil-immigration-ice-raids-rcna189691
Nitish Pahwa, "Just What the Doctor Ordered," Slate - https://slate.com/business/2025/10/dr-phil-mcgraw-donald-trump-merit-media-maga.html
Lisa de Moraes, "On Dr. Phil, a Dose of Bad Medicine?" Washington Post - https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63905-2004Sep30.html
Matt Flegenheimer, "Dr. Phil's Road From Oprah to ICE Raids," New York Times - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/10/style/dr-phils-road-from-oprah-to-ice-raids.html
Merit Street Media YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@newsonmeritstreet/videos
Eric Rasmussen & David Ewoldsen, "Treatment via Television: The Relation Between Watching Dr. Phil and Viewers' Intentions to Seek Mental Health Treatment,"  Journal of Health Communication - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10810730.2015.1114054
Colton Wooten, "My Years in the Florida Shuffle of Drug Addiction," New Yorker - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/21/my-years-in-the-florida-shuffle-of-drug-addiction
Teen Torture, Inc. HBO - https://play.hbomax.com/show/6e25d97c-26ec-439b-83ef-6b3cca5af597

Ash and Rachel explore the checkered career of Wilhelm Reich, and try not to get too boxed in about it. 
Sources:
Wilhelm Reich, The Sexual Revolution, 1945
Wilhelm Reich, Selected Writings, 1960
Peter Reich, A Book of Dreams, 1973
Christopher Turner, Adventures in the Orgasmatron, 2011
"Weatherwatcher: Wilhelm Reich's Cloudbuster," David Hambling, The Guardian, July 6 2011: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2011/jul/06/weatherwatch-cloudbuster
Stillpoint Berlin, Re-reading the psychology of Wilhelm Reich, "Life and Work in the Modern Work System," by Christian Smith, January 25, 2017: https://youtu.be/0YqNW2w9vWc?si=7iMzSUQTl6pRHrDa
https://wilhelmreichmuseum.org/about/biography-of-wilhelm-reich/
"The New Cult of Sex and Anarchy," Mildred Eddy Brady, Harpers 1947: https://harpers.org:8443/archive/1947/04/the-new-cult-of-sex-and-anarchy/

Rachel and Ash venture into the world of neuro-linguistic programming, trying (and failing) to use word-spells to get everything they've ever wanted. Content warning: NXIVM, murder, pick-up artists.
Sources:
Frank Clancy & Heidi Yorkshire, "The Bander Method" - Mother Jones, Feb/Mar 1989 https://books.google.com/books?id=DOcDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA22#v=onepage&q&f=false
Robert S. Spitzer, "Virginia Satir & Origins of NLP" - https://www.social-engineer.org/wiki/archives/NLP/NLP-Satir395.pdf
Tomasz Witkowski, "Thirty-Five Years of Research on Neuro-Linguistic Programming. NLP Research Data Base. State of the Art or Pseudoscientific Decoration?" Polish Psychological Bulletin - https://philpapers.org/rec/WITTYO
Richard Wiseman, et al., "The Eyes Don't Have It: Lie Detection and Neuro-Linguistic Programming," PLoS ONE - https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0040259
Terrence McClendon, The Wild Days: NLP 1972-1981 - https://archive.org/details/wilddays0000mccl
Toni Natalie & Chet Hardin, The Program: Inside the Mind of Keith Raniere and the Rise and Fall of NXIVM - https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-program-inside-the-mind-of-keith-raniere-and-the-rise-and-fall-of-nxivm-chet-hardin/6d3afa01e96ff5ad
Ross Jeffries, How To Get the Women You Desire Into Bed - https://www.maerivoet.org/website/links/miscellaneous/speed-seduction-book/resources/speed-seduction-book.pdf
Neil Strauss, The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists - https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-game-penetrating-the-secret-society-of-pickup-artists-neil-strauss/659bc135ee8fb93e
Louis Theroux Tests out Hypnotic Dating - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn_oqEOtLYU

Rachel and Ash explore the work of Elizabeth Kübler-Ross and her five stages of death/grief. A scammy cult is involved, because a scammy cult always seems to be involved. 
 
SOURCES:
 
Elizabeth Kübler-Ross - On Death and Dying (1969)
Elizabeth Kübler-Ross - On Life After Death (1991)
Elizabeth Kübler-Ross - The Wheel of Life: A Memoir (1997)
Jessica Weisberg - Asking for a Friend: Three Centuries of Advice on Life, Love, Money, and Other Burning Questions from a Nation Obsessed (2007)
"Doctor Noted for Work with the Dying Involved in Controversy Over Seances," Los Angeles Times, October 15, 1979
Produced by Zoe Kurland. Music by Flock of Dimes.

Ash and Rachel delve into the world of chatbot therapy -- sit back and listen as the machines glitch out and reveal their true selves.
SOURCES:
Hillman, James, and Michael Ventura. We've Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy – And the World's Getting Worse. New York: HarperCollins, 1992 (e-book version 2007)
Balan, Raluca, and Thomas P. Gumpel. "ChatGPT Clinical Use in Mental Health Care: Scoping Review of Empirical Evidence." JMIR Mental Health (via PMC), December 24, 2025
Lewis-Kraus, Gideon. (2026). What is Claude? Anthropic Doesn't Know, Either. Retrieved from:https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/02/16/what-is-claude-anthropic-doesnt-know-either
Luo, Xiaochen, et al. ""Shaping ChatGPT into my Digital Therapist": A thematic analysis of social media discourse on using generative artificial intelligence for mental health." Digital Health, vol. 11, June 3, 2025
Raile, Paolo. "The usefulness of ChatGPT for psychotherapists and patients." Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, January 4, 2024
Solms, M. (2013). The Conscious Id. Neuropsychoanalysis, 15(1), 5–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/15294145.2013.10773711
https://www.thehumanlineproject.org/
** in-episode correction: Pat Ogden created Sensorimotor Psychotherapy not Somatic Experiencing (this was Peter Levine)**

Produced by Zoe Kurland. Music by Flock of Dimes.