This question is the way Dr. Phil likes to drive his point home. With a question he tries to “prove” that our thinking or behavior is failing us on some fundamental level, often shaming us in the process.
Dr. Phil, (who I consider to be the current masthead of mainstream “pop” psychology), operates on the conventional and widespread assumption that if there is a problem, we must be doing something wrong, and we need to be fixed. If we don’t feel right or act normally, or if something is difficult, disturbing, upsetting, or problematic — we should be “treated.” If we muscle up, and endure the hard transition, we can overcome our symptoms of sadness and displeasure.
Maybe he’s missing the point.
It’s difficult for me to accept that our unfathomably complex, incredibly vital, and little-understood human consciousness could ever fall into such an over-simplified and linear breakdown as problem + treatment = solution. We are not dealing with medicine where we can kill bacteria or mend a broken limb. We are dealing with mind itself. And frankly, we are a lot wiser than we give ourselves credit for. Our problems are information — information that does not need to be changed, rewritten, or deleted. Information that is shining a light on deeper, more fundamental, and important realities.
To illustrate this different approach, I’ve gone toe-to-toe with Dr. Phil on several items, responding directly to his broadcasts one-at-a-time in my book Talking Back to Dr. Phil: Alternatives to Mainstream Psychology.