Phil wrote this about himself 15 years ago...
"I've been a psychiatrist for over 25 years. From the outside, it looks like a quiet, almost serene, profession. But it's never felt like that to me. My days are prolonged battles. And the fight isn't directly with my patients. They're in pain. They want to get better. The fight is with an invisible force that dominates them. A force with an other-worldly power to destroy their happiness."
"The idea of tools were, in essence, really weapons used in a war."
Phil wrote The Tools, and Coming Alive with his writing partner Barry Michels. Their tools are helping thousands of people (me included) live courageously by releasing them from traps set by resentment, fear, inauthenticity, worry, hurt feelings, demoralization, lethargy, and self-gratification. I first discovered Phil three years ago on Marc Maron's WTF. Mind blowing! I bought the book immediately. Life changing! Phil was back in Marc's garage just a few days ago.
Show Notes
Phil talked about how he combined Carl Jung's concepts of archetypes and the collective unconscious with Rudolph Steiner's spiritual science. He mentions some great books (and they're free!) - How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds by Rudolph Steiner, and Man or Matter by Ernst Lehrs. Phil also mentioned the 12th Imam [I think the paradoxical truth here is... genuine wholeness requires a missing ingredient].
Phil talked about Freud's term, "flight into health". How fleeting and temporary wellbeing can be... requiring daily work (ceaseless effort). Denis mentioned Jung's Red Book.
Earlier in the show
Denis read his thought experiment, "Colors Fade".