CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Change Your Mind, Change Your Life: The BBC's dire new therapy series is worse than rubbish - it's dangerous
Change Your Mind, Change Your Life (BBC1)
We no longer, in these sensitive and enlightened days, use phrases such as, 'Pull yourself together,' or, 'For God's sake, stop feeling so sorry for yourself'.
But apparently, it's completely fine to tell someone who is paralysed by anxiety to switch to 'automatic pilot' and go through life like 'a little robot'.
That advice was offered by Professor Steve Peters to 39-year-old former amateur athlete James, on Change Your Mind, Change Your Life. I'm struggling to see how it's very different from telling a person with depression that what he needs is 'a good kick up the backside'.
James's nerves were so bad following a stroke that he was sometimes unable to work. The prof's remedy for getting out of bed in the morning amounted to a simple computer code: 'Number one, sit up, Number two, put your feet on the floor. Number three, stand up. Number four, start walking.'
At best, that sounds like the sort of instruction a no-nonsense parent might use to rouse a reluctant teenager on the first day of school term. The thought that people will actually pay good money for this 'therapy' makes my head spin.
The show is presented by married couple Matt and Emma Willis, a pair of all-purpose telly faces lately seen presenting a gimmicky dating show called Love Is Blind: UK while also appearing together on Cooking With The Stars. They'll do anything, basically.
Apparently, it's completely fine to tell someone who is paralysed by anxiety to switch to 'automatic pilot' and go through life like 'a little robot'
Their only qualification for this show is that both of them have undergone therapy. Matt, a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, says he has been beset by anxiety for years. Emma told us she didn't believe she needed therapy until she saw a therapist. Probably, she's the sort of person who doesn't know she needs new windows until the double glazing salesman calls.
They've got all the patter, though: 'How does that make you feel?' 'What's going through your mind?'
The first two episodes of this dire series were dumped in a double bill close to midnight. But it's worse than rubbish — it's dangerous. Viewers suffering from grief, anxiety or the trauma of being bullied are effectively being told that they can't get better on their own. They have to open their wallets and get therapy.
Legal constraints mean that, when writing about therapists, I am not allowed to use words like 'charlatans', 'hokum', 'pretentious bilge' or 'money for old rope'.
But some of the cod psychology doled out to clients was simply breathtaking drivel. Here's the prof again: 'Let's understand that you and your brain are separate. You've got a mind here, and then there's you. And your mind has got these compulsions, you haven't. You're independent of that.'
One question: If my brain and I are separate, what's doing the thinking? My heart, my soul, my kidneys?
I'm starting to suspect that Prof Peters and his backside are separate entities: he has a mouth and a rear end, and it isn't his mouth that's doing the talking.
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