Doctor Phil is not quite a one-trick pony, but he has a limited bag of tricks (approaches) that work well for people for whom those are the best approach at the point in their lives where they encounter him. But they tend not to work well for everyone at all times and in all situations.

He calls himself a "life strategist" now, and freely acknwoledges that he was a terrible therapist, working with people individually or in couples' therapy, because he would get impatient and tell people to get real. For some people, that approach is so invalidating as to shut them down, and these sorts of people tend to respond better to other approaches (like play therapy would be a totally different approach).

~Susan