The self-help movement is often blamed for encouraging people to refuse to take responsibility for their own actions, essentially making the sufferer more helpless, despite the movement's name. However, according to Dr. Phil McGraw's "Life Law Two: 'you [the patient] create your own experience. Strategy: Acknowledge and accept accountability for your life. Understand your role in creating results.'" In other words, "[D] on't play the role of victim, or use past events to build excuses. It guarantees you no progress, no healing, and no victory. You will never fix a problem by blaming someone else. Whether the cards you've been dealt are good or bad, you're in charge of yourself now." (McGraw, 2003) As one commentator noted: "Dr. Phil issues counsel as marching orders." (Paul, 2003) For Dr. Phil, ignorance is no excuse, nor is an unhappy past or unfair treatment in Dr. Phil's eyes. While underlying most self-help philosophies is the basic theme: "You are not alone," and that sharing one's sufferings with others verbally is the key to recovery, McGraw would point out that changing one's life, is a difficult, often a lonely process, and merely verbally sharing one's grief does not move life forward in a productive fashion. (Riessman, 2000).

             Although McGraw's psychological prescription may seem harsh, it is helpfully action-oriented. Yes, your parents may have been mean. Yes, you may have been treated unfairly. But the past cannot be changed. For example, a woman may be attracted to abusive men because her father was abusive. Recognizing this fact in therapy does not change the fact that she is married to an abuser. She must put this recognition into action, and generate practical results by freeing herself from this man, economically and emotionally, and generating a more fruitful life and work pattern for herself and for her family. If she does not, she is making a choice to continue to live in the past, a choice for which she is responsible.