Dr. Phil Episode Notes: Mistress Revealed
Here are my notes from today’s Dr. Phil episode: Dr. Phil Housewives: The Mistress Revealed.
Segment 1
Summary: Jennifer finds out what the interloper woman her husband cheated with looks like. Alana gets into argument with Dr. Phil. Dr. Phil wants Alana and Gloria to look into each other’s eyes without saying anything, presumably to heighten their sensitivity towards each other’s feelings. Dr. Phil said that today’s episode will get intense for Alana but that the experience would change her. Then, they summarized the relevant happenings with the housewives so far, to bring new viewers up to date who have not watched this season from the start last fall. Mostly, this footage showed the numerous conflicts that have happened this season between Gloria and Alana.
Alana involved in fundraiser fashion show for the National Animal Rescue organization that Dr. Phil also likes. Alana wanted all the housewives to attend the event except Gloria. Alana does not trust Gloria due to their harsh historical interactions. She began bullying Michelle when Michelle objected to her not inviting Gloria to the fashion show. “You’re out of order!” Alana shouted, standing up and moving toward Michelle in a menacing fashion, waving her arms, and making expressly intimidating moves. Alana behaved the part of the hot tamale today. She accused Dr. Phil of “having favorites.” She doesn’t want Gloria attending her cat walk show because of how “unpredictable” she thinks Gloria is.
Dr. Phil donated $10,000 to this group, and wanted all the Dr. Phil housewives to attend. But he got a different response from Alana than he expected. Why does Alana not want to invite Gloria? He asked the entire group what they thought of Alana’s refusing to invite Gloria. “It’s mean,” they said. He had to put his hands up several times to gently implore the ladies to calm down. He thinks Alana overacted to what was said in the session today and wonders why she’s really getting so upset. He does not believe that Gloria, Michelle, or anyone else in the room was the cause. He said that Alana was being “disproportionate” and “rude,” and that that doesn’t have anything to do with the other housewives. Seems to me that Dr. Phil thought it wrong for Alana to behave in such an over-the-top way. He’s getting Alana to talk, and wants to know if she’s proud of her ability to bully and intimidate people. He pointed out that Alana is unpredictable herself, based on how she so quickly jumped up with Michelle addressed her, and he wants to help her with issues of “anger management” and “impulse control.” He asks Alana if she’s too good to get help.
Michelle called Alana out on how mean it was for her to exclude Gloria. She suggested that Alana only surrounds herself with people who do not challenge her. She wished Alana luck finding enough people to get along with without making changes in herself as well. She’s upset at Alana for her low blows about Michelle’s loneliness and how she spends lots of time in her house by herself. She’s happy for the Alana experience however, because she feels that it’s teaching her how to stand up for herself when someone is talking her down.
Segment 2
Dr. Phil revealed that it was a restaurant that he and some other big name celebrities like Chevy Chase and Tom Cruise visit, where an employee there said that Alana was the rudest customer he’s encountered in his entire eight years working there. Dr. Phil then referenced his Self Matters book (I read that book and it’s a good one), where he said that the more we accept ourselves, the less vulnerable we feel toward others who seem like they may not accept us. He advised Alana that she won’t get better if she continues to hide behind humor and bluster. She’ll have to own this to actually improve it. He said that there’s no one in this room that’s completely toxic. I read him to say that all these women are equally legitimate human beings with equally legitimate feelings and needs. Thus, how one or two behave is not a good justification for any of the others to dismiss her as unworthy of their consideration because she’s just plan goofy. They’re all functioning human beings trying to get along. It seems that his point was that no one should be dismissed. All people (except for proclaimed or proven deviants), regardless of how different they are, are worthy of us trying our best to get along with them. We should not give up the struggle just because someone at first appears so different than ourselves. There are no extremely good or bad examples of human beings among the Dr. Phil housewives. Alana’s not bad necessarily for reacting to Gloria as she does and vice versa. They’re just people with differences. Alana’s conflict-laden nature comes from within her and can only be fully addressed from within, and not by cherry picking the people she lets into her life that will not seriously challenge her.
Alana continues to dismiss this evidence of her overly forceful and rude behavior. She’s full of excuses, faulting the restaurant for being ill equipped to adequately serve customers like her. Alana uses humor to deflect this unwanted attention from Dr. Phil. “Well, I just won’t talk to anybody. How ‘bout that?” Alana justified her choice not to invite Gloria because Gloria admitted some episodes back that Alana made her feel sick inside. So Alana wondered why she would want to invite someone to her show that thinks that Alana makes her sick. Further, Alana has not been impressed with Gloria’s efforts to mend fences with her. She either did not recognize these attempts, or just dismissed them as inconvenient facts that would otherwise cause her justification of her dislike of Gloria to fall apart. She said that she just does not trust Gloria to put Alana first on her special night with this fashion show and doesn’t want Gloria to ruin it for her. Alana continued to attack and bully, treating the other women like they themselves are exclusively the problem, and not her.
Gloria today did admit to saying that but pointed out that that was some time back and that she has on several occasions tried to make amends with Alana. Then, they showed some clips that corroborated Gloria’s story. There was the “love hug” that Gloria gave Alana at the sleepover they had at the Dr. Phil house.
Segment 3
Dr. Phil wants to know why Alana is hurting so much. He suggested that we can learn the best lessons from those who intimidate, anger, or induce fear in us the most. These are the folks we should talk to the most. For those who bruise our psychological layers the most, we tend to eventually find much value in. I don’t agree in all cases with this. But I will concede that indeed, there are profound lessons to learn from those with whom we disagree, and those lessons may or may not include insight on how to agree with them. He positioned Alana and Gloria, face to face and encouraged them to look into each other’s eyes without saying anything for a few moments.
Alana denies that any pain that she might be experiencing causes her to be so rude and abrasive. She says that she’s missing passion in her life. She’s a slave to her life it seems, and feels like she’s just jumping through hoops for the master, and that master is NOT her heart. She so overly obligated by her mortgage, her pending divorce, her jobs, and so on, that her stress level appears monumental. She’s frustrated that she’s not getting more of what she wants out of life. Alana doesn’t agree that she and Gloria are much alike. Alana at first experienced great difficulty looking into Gloria’s eyes. But as they talked, she warmed up to doing it.
Gloria says that her and Alana are very much alike, as they both have a lot of the same issues and pains. Gloria kept her gaze on Alana with greater resoluteness than did Alana to her.
Segment 4
Alana still has trouble looking at Gloria. She’s embarrassed that Gloria is seeing her cry. She recognizes that Gloria is hurting but does not understand why Gloria has been so mean to her. They both say that they do not wish to be mean to each other but neither one knows how to stop it. Alana didn’t realize that the things she said to and about Gloria hurt her deeply inside.
Dr. Phil encouraged Alana to look at Gloria because she told him that she trusted him. He asked her to trust him with this. He asked each one to apologize to the other for comments, hurtful looks, eye rolling, and other non verbal expressions of discontent that they’ve used against each other since first appearing on this series last fall.
Gloria remained pretty well-composed throughout this exercise. Gloria’s apology to Alana appeared highly sincere and thoughtfully measured. Her apology sounded more sincere and thus more believable than Alana’s in my opinion.
Michelle is skeptical about whether this changing day for Alana will in fact have indeed been a changing day in weeks to come. She’s heard Alana cry and snivel before. But the changes she affirmed to make only lasted until her tears dried up, and the behavior that precipitated the tears in the first place returned, apparent as ever.
Next, they’re switching to Jennifer, where she’ll finally get to see some pictures of the woman her husband cheated with.
Segment 5
Jennifer opens the envelope containing the incriminating pictures now. They won’t show the picture to viewers. But judging from the reactions of the ladies who indeed saw it, the interloper was butt-ugly. This left them confounded as to why her husband would have picked this woman over Jennifer. Hmmm. He must have been dumpster diving. It’s interesting that Jennifer is relieved. She feels better for some reason, now that she knows that her husband got far less of a lady for cheating that she was herself. She believes that the interloper does not measure up to her at all in terms of over all attractiveness. She’s amazed that her husband would jeopardize his family and career for someone who looks like this. I have problems with this belief system but I’ll not get into them here. Perhaps in another segment in the Tom’s Love Quest blog. I wish they would have at least showed a face-blurred image of the interloper.
Dr. Phil wants these ladies to be picky about who they allow into their lives. Interesting quote from Dr. Phil: They [suitors] may not qualify for being him [the one] right away, but they can be disqualified from being him right away. I’ve known about this truth in my own love quest for quite some time now. I’ve understood that many, many pieces of information must be known about a lady to determine that she’s my dream girl. But all it takes is one piece of information that I don’t like, to expel her from dream girl standing in my eyes. I’ve talked about how each time you advance a relationship to the next level of intimacy, you run the risk of learning something about the beloved that turns you off. Either that or they learn something about you that turns them off. He advised Gloria and Michelle to get out into the field of dating, and to initiate and then get into relationships. Be picky, he told them.
Gloria has children and is concerned about introducing a new man to them until she knows that he’s “the one.” But she wondered, how can I know that he’s him, without introducing him to my children and seeing how he interacts with them. This is a difficult quandary indeed. Gloria was hurt when Alana said she did not want Gloria attending the show.
Alana is reconsidering inviting Gloria to the fashion show. She thinks things are getting better between herself and Gloria. But with the event coming up fast, she’s not confident that everything will be resolved. But perhaps they’ll be getting along well enough by then that Alana won’t worry about Gloria screwing up the show for her. Alana has some real difficulty trusting others.
Segment 6
Alana personally invited Gloria to the fundraiser fashion show for the animals. She thanked Dr. Phil for his $10,000 donation. She appreciated what he’s done for her and said that it feels good to know that someone really cares about her.
The girls are trying out dresses, looking for the right ones to wear to the event. Alana and Gloria do seem to be getting along much better.
Jennifer got a hair cut and a nice new red dress.
Gloria supported Alana at the show, “from her heart,” she said.
Segment 7
They talked about what’s coming up next Monday and Tuesday and the Dr. Phil Housewives series. Drugs offered at fashion show but girls turned them down (I think). Looks like one of the girls is being taken to the hospital in an ambulance. So perhaps at least one of them did not turn away the drugs.
Dr. Phil is summarizing this show, and he says that next week, the drama will hit an all-time high.
Michelle received some date coaching during the ending credits of this show.
Coach: On the first date, keep all the conversation positive, and advised Michelle not to sleep with a guy after only one date. They admit that Michelle has some work to do to prepare herself for successful dating. But she’s got the ambition, interest, and they think that they’ll be able to help her succeed.
Okay, that’s the end of this episode.
March 10th, 2011 at 10:12 pm
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March 23rd, 2011 at 2:18 pm
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