THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 44 FEBRUA RY 26, 2020
PREVIOUS SPREAD: PHIL: NOEL VASQUEZ/GETTY IMAGES. DOTS: ADOBE STOCK. THIS SPREAD: GROOMING AND HAIR AND MAKEUP BY SU NAEEM AT DEW BEAUTY AGENCY. BOOK: COURTESY OF SIMON & SCHUSTER.Lawlis, 79, holds an influential
position as chief content adviser
to McGraw. Drawing more than
3 million viewers each weekday,
Dr. Phil has been the No. 1 syn-
dicated talk show by a healthy
margin, ahead of competitors like
Ellen and Live With Kelly and Ryan,
since Oprah Winfrey left broad-
cast TV in 2011. McGraw, who has
branded himself as an authorita-
tive voice on the nation’s public
health issues, made an estimated
$95 million in 2019, according to
Forbes, and received a star on the
Walk of Fame on Feb. 21.
Without the platform of Dr. Phil,
Lawlis, who espouses ideas and
treatments considered contro-
versial and even dangerous by the
mainstream medical community,
might be a figure on the margins
of public health. But his ability
to directly impact the show’s
guests, and inform its massive
audience, makes him a figure
of consequence.
Dr. Phil viewers recognize
Lawlis from his frequent appear-
ances as a designated expert on
the show, during which McGraw
treats Lawlis with notable
respect, often introducing him
as one the foremost authors or
experts on whatever subject
he’s conferring on. (Lawlis was
McGraw’s Ph.D. adviser decades
ago.) Beamed in from Texas and
donning a white coat, Lawlis
weighs in on everything from
opioid dependency to autism. In
a 2017 segment focused on Chase,
a 19-year-old man who claimed
his life had spiraled out of control
after a marijuana-induced panic
attack, McGraw said he was send-
ing him to the Lewisville clinic to
get a “scan of your brain.” Lawlis,
who ventured that “we also
might have a feature of PTSD”
to explore, explained that tech-
niques “that work very quickly”
would be utilized that “will help
resolve him back to where he was
before.” Hearing the news back
in Los Angeles on the Paramount
lot, Chase and his family dis-
solved into hugs and tears as the
crowd applauded.
While the talking-head seg-
ments are Lawlis’ most visible
contribution to the show, more
important is his behind-the-
scenes input, acting as the guru’s
guru. In coordination with
producers, Lawlis vets would-be
guests with psychological prob-
lems, consults with McGraw on
how to advise them during their
segments (despite his famed hon-
orific, McGraw holds no license
to practice medicine), examines
the thorniest cases at his Texas
clinic and helps coordinate treat-
ment at favored rehab facilities.
“There’s probably not a show that
goes on the air that doesn’t have
Dr. Lawlis’ feedback,” explains Dr.
Barbara Peavey, Lawlis’ private
practice partner. Lawlis also has
weighed in on McGraw’s congres-
sional testimony — the TV host
has been invited to Capitol Hill to
speak about mental health — and
advised on his best-selling books.
Lawlis derives multiple income
streams from his work with
Dr. Phil — as an adviser to the
show, as a proprietor of the clinic
where additional services are per-
formed on selected guests, and as
a consultant to the rehab facility
where many are later treated.
(Guests themselves are not paid
to appear on Dr. Phil.)
Even apart from his work with
McGraw, Lawlis boasts an eclec-
tic résumé. His sojourns have
included heading a prayer healing
foundation in Santa Fe for cancer
patients, running a Silicon Valley
institute dedicated to the study of
transpersonal psychology — mys-
tical experiences, spiritual crises,
altered states of consciousness
— and consulting on a mental
wellness program pertaining to
employee overwork in Japan for
a division of Toyota. For the past
two decades, he’s worked part-
time, designing exams as the
testing director for the American
branch of the international high-
IQ society Mensa. (He’s never
applied to become a member:
“I don’t think it makes ethical
sense that I take the test that I
already know about.”) There hesees the effect of Big Pharma — a
perceived nemesis through much
of his work — observing that the
organization has been grappling
with doping among applicants:
“Adderall is a big one.”
Lawlis sees himself as an
anti-establishment maverick. He
fondly recalls the Dallas Police
raiding a pain group he once ran
at an area hospital circa 1980,
during which — as an experiment
in pain relief — he passed around
a peace pipe whose tobacco
included willow bark and sage.
The authorities wanted to arrest
him on a marijuana charge. “But
three of the participants were
actually cops, so it was dropped,”
he says. “The [hospital] adminis-
tration said never to do it again.”
In another incident at a medical
facility in Fort Worth, Texas, he
constructed a saltwater floata-
tion tank for patient use that soon
leaked into the cardiac intensive
care unit below. “It turned out to
be one of the best things that ever
happened,” Lawlis remembers. “I
walked in, expecting to be fired,
and the chief of staff said, ‘Frank,
don’t make anything! If you want
something made, we’ll do it for
you!’ He did — and it was beauti-
ful.” Lawlis shrugs, amused. “I’m
always looking over my shoulder,
afraid of going to prison.”
Lawlis, who’s from a small West
Texas town, contends his lifelong
contrarianism was set in motion
by a pair of character-establish-
ing childhood experiences. By
his account, he was “born dead,”
or at least his folks told him so
growing up: Because of birthing
complications involving pain
medication, he’d been oxygen
deprived and brain damaged.
“This notion existed in my family
from that point on — even when
I got my Ph.D.,” he says. “I had
tremendous problems in school.
Now it could be explained in other
ways, like ADHD.”
The other defining feature
shadowing his youth was his
mother’s chronic ill health,
largely gastric and arthritic in
scope, which required more
than two dozen operations. “As
a kid, I lost faith in Western
medicine,” Lawlis says. “I had the
insight that many of my mother’s
problems were psychological.
My father [a pharmacist turnedpharmaceutical sales representa-
tive] wanted me to be a doctor.
But seeing the failure for her
in terms of pills and surgery, I
wanted to be somebody who could
help through behavior.”
Lawlis, inspired in part by
The Eleventh Hour, a 1960s NBC
medical drama about psychiatry,
compares his chosen vocation
to a secular ministry and has
taught at several schools, includ-
ing the University of North
Texas, where he met McGraw. His
future boss stood out to Lawlis
from his pupil’s first day in his
doctoral-level class in advanced
personality. “There were about
12 people in there, and all of them
were writing notes down like
crazy — except him,” Lawlis says.
“He was looking at me like he
already knew it. We would have
conversations, and he did know
it. I made a decision that he was
either the dumbest guy or the
smartest guy I’ve ever dealt with.”
The pair grew close, bond-
ing over their mutual pasts as
college football players andLawlis’
Healing
Rhythms
to Reset
Wellness has
a foreword
by McGraw,
who often
references
his mentor’s
books on
his show.