science

Phil McGraw

Phil McGraw is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Phil McGraw rather than just read about it. In short: Phillip Calvin McGraw (born September 1, 1950), better known as Dr. Phil, is an American television personality and author who hosted the talk show Dr.

Key takeaways

Phil McGraw belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Phil McGraw to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Phil McGraw from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Phillip Calvin McGraw (born September 1, 1950), better known as Dr. Phil, is an American television personality and author who hosted the talk show Dr. Phil. He holds a doctorate in clinical psychology, though he ceased renewing his license to practice psychology in 2006. McGraw frequently appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show in the late 1990s. Oprah Winfrey then helped McGraw launch his own advice show, Dr. Phil, in September 2002.

Early life and education Phillip Calvin McGraw was born in Vinita, Oklahoma, on September 1, 1950, the son of Joseph J. McGraw Jr. (1924–1993) and his wife Anne Geraldine "Jerry" (née Stevens; 1924–2011). He grew up with two older sisters, Deana and Donna, and younger sister Brenda in the oilfields of North Texas where his father was an equipment supplier. At age 13, he worked at an A&W Root Beer stand and a local chain called Pizza Planet in Oklahoma City. McGraw moved to Kansas with his father, who pursued his lifelong goal of becoming a psychologist. There, Phil attended Shawnee Mission North High School in Overland Park, Kansas. He played linebacker on the high school football team and, in 1968, earned a football scholarship to the University of Tulsa where he played middle linebacker under coach Glenn Dobbs. He later transferred to Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas, where he graduated in 1975 with a B.A. in psychology. He went on to earn an M.A. in experimental psychology in 1976 and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology in 1979, both at North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas), where his dissertation was titled "Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Psychological Intervention." He did a year of post-doctoral training in forensic psychology at the Wilmington Institute. McGraw's doctoral advisor was Frank Lawlis, who later became the primary contributing psychologist for the Dr. Phil television show.

Early career After obtaining his doctorate, McGraw rejoined his father in Wichita Falls, Texas, where the elder McGraw had established his private psychology practice. In 1971, McGraw lived in Topeka, Kansas, and ran the Grecian Health Spa alongside his father and two friends. McGraw closed the business, filed for bankruptcy and moved out of state in September 1973. McGraw had sold the lifetime membership contracts customers had signed to another company, resulting in customers being still legally responsible for the membership even though the spa was closed. McGraw and his business partners were investigated by the state's Attorney General office. Lead investigator Emory Goad said "McGraw had been pulling off a textbook example of a membership scam. He was signing up hundreds of customers to long, expensive contracts, then turning around and selling the contracts to a financial institution for a percentage of the total value up front in cash. He then simply shut down the spa at some point after collecting that money and left town. It was a total rip-off because the customers would still be liable for the contract payments, only now to the financial institution." McGraw was sued by several Topeka banks for $41,000 they claimed he owed, but the lawsuits and investigation stalled when he left the state. In 1985, McGraw and his father partnered with Thelma Box, a Texas businesswoman, in presenting "Pathways" self-help seminars. In October 1991, six years after joining Box, the younger McGraw sold his share in the company for $325,000. In 1990, McGraw co-founded Courtroom Sciences, Inc. (CSI), a trial consulting firm, with lawyer Gary Dobbs. CSI would perform "dry runs" of court cases in simulated courtrooms, and McGraw would offer advice about what parts of the lawyer's case worked and what parts did not. McGraw is no longer an officer or director of the company. The TV show Bull is based on McGraw's experience as a trial consultant, and he is credited as one of the creators of the series. McGraw began working with Oprah Winfrey through CSI.

Television career

Oprah Winfrey and the Dr. Phil show In 1995, Oprah Winfrey hired McGraw's legal consulting firm CSI to prepare her for the Amarillo Texas beef trial. Winfrey was so impressed with McGraw that she thanked him for her victory in that case, which ended in 1998. Soon after, she invited him to appear on her show. His appearance proved so successful that he began appearing weekly as a relationship and life strategy expert on Tuesdays, starting in April 1998. In September 2002, McGraw formed Peteski Productions and launched his own syndicated daily television show, Dr. Phil, produced by Winfrey's Harpo Studios. Dr. Phil is an advice show in which McGraw tackles a different topic each show, offering advice to his guests. He signed a five-year extension of his syndication deal with his show's distributors, King World Productions, Inc. The deal was to pay McGraw $15 million per year and keep the show in production through the 2013–2014 television season. In 2007, McGraw was named 30th on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list. On May 21, 2007, Dr. Phil was ranked fourth by Nielsen Media Research, with 6.69 million viewers. On May 12, 2008, almost one year later, the show was ranked sixth with 5.69 million viewers. At that time, the only talk show more popular than Dr. Phil was The Oprah Winfrey Show. On December 11, 2018, Dr. Phil was the top syndicated show with a "2.9 live-plus-same-day" national Nielsen rating, ranking first among talk shows for the 117th consecutive week. His ranking improved, and by 2020, he was in the 22nd spot on the aforementioned Forbes list with earnings of $65.5 million.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Phil McGraw: McGraw photographed for the cover of Newsweek magazine by Jerry Avenaim in 2001 — McGraw photographed for the cover of Newsweek magazine by Jerry Avenaim in 2001

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Phil McGraw

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Phil McGraw claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Phil McGraw before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Phil McGraw ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Phil McGraw

In research: Phil McGraw appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Phil McGraw in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Phil McGraw is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1950 births, 20th-century American male non-fiction writers, 20th-century American non-fiction writers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Phil McGraw outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Phil McGraw in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Phil McGraw means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Phil McGraw out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Phil McGraw in simple terms?

Phillip Calvin McGraw (born September 1, 1950), better known as Dr. Phil, is an American television personality and author who hosted the talk show Dr.

Why does Phil McGraw matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Phil McGraw?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Phil McGraw.