Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew – Self Help Television Show Evaluation

“Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew,” which was later dubbed “Rehab with Dr. Drew,” is a reality television show that used to air on the cable network VH1 beginning January 10, 2008. The show chronicled a group of people in their treatment for alcohol, drug and sex addiction by Dr. Drew Pinsky at the Pasadena Recovery center in California(Pinsky, 2010). The group of patients was cast celebrities until 2012 when the show started featuring non-celebrities.

Dr. Drew, who served as a psychologist, led a treatment team that consisted of a therapist and a nurse. These, together with additional members of the team, exuded a genuine desire to help people, with Dr. Drew and his therapist promising a coherent theoretical model (the addiction) and a treatment that unfolded at an individual or group level.

Dr. Drew had strengths in genuine warmth, unconditional positive regard, and empathy. He listened to his clients and responded with spontaneity and vulnerability. He asked just enough questions to assess the mindset of his clients and merged this with the treatment path of his therapist. From this point of view, the show is openly informational and Dr. Drew practices ethical principal and standards of psychology, making him acognitive and behavioral expert.

However, the show lacked object constancy, privacy, and the consumption of the show was, itself, voyeuristic. This owes to the fact that psychiatry was fused with chronologically remixed storylines and dramatic cutaways(Huskinson & Waddell, 2015, p.136). The idea of treating addiction was reinforced by media’s fascination, painting a picture that the process is overly simple and pure, which is not the case from a psychological point of view.

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