Extreme transparency and listening to Mel Gibson hurts us as much if not more than it hurts him according to one behavior expert and therapist who says we need to separate the art from the artist and realize many artists and entertainers are dysfunctional and not necessarily morally good people.

“We have become more interested in the artist’s personal life than his or her art and the danger is that it will simply end our enjoyment of their work – movies, songs and TV shows” according to Patrick Wanis PhD – Human Behavior & Relationship Expert. “While there is no defense for Gibson’s behavior, most artists and Hollywood actors and actresses are riddled and driven by their emotional pain and dysfunction; very few artists, entertainers or even athletes are morally worthy of being role models, and there is no real tangible benefit for us by delving and reliving all of the details of incidents such as Gibson’s rant and tirade. As we now learn more and more about the sordid details of the personal lives of artists such as Mel Gibson or even Lindsay Lohan, we are damning the art as well as the artist and we can never again fully enjoy the artist’s work. If we do this with every artist, there will be no art left to enjoy ; do we ban all bad celebrities? Michael Jackson was an alleged pedophile; Cecil B DeMille directed the biblical epic “The Ten Commandments” but he was a married man with serial mistresses; Phil Spector produced some of the biggest musical hits of the 1960s but he was found guilty of murder; Academy Award winning actress Liza Minnelli struggled with alcohol abuse and allegedly beat up her fourth husband;  Singer Bing Crosby and actress Joan Crawford were child abusers – her daughter Christina recalls her mother dragging her from bed in the middle of the night, aged nine, to beat her over the head with a can of scouring powder for leaving soap streaks on a bathroom floor.; best-selling author, Stephen King says he was so frequently drunk that he can’t even remember writing CUJO and; movie director Woody Allen married Soon-Yi, the adopted daughter of his former girlfriend. Do we throw out all of the art as we damn the artist and damn their art?” asks Dr. Wanis.

“With the power of technology and the internet we now have developed extraordinarily dangerous and destructive transparency and now we are more interested in the real life bad behavior of people such as Lindsay Lohan and Mel Gibson than we are in their acting; Lindsay’ greatest and possibly only career now is her real life drama.”

“When we look deeper into the personal lives of celebrities, entertainers and those we mistakenly idolize and when we seek out all of the sordid details, we warp and erode our image of them, with little benefit for us; perhaps it is best to focus on their artistic contribution and not get so heavily involved in their personal lives” concludes Dr. Wanis.

  Continue reading “Ban bad celebrities?” »

The 90-day jail sentence for actress Lindsay Lohan will benefit her path to recovery according to one expert.

Lindsay Lohan violated the terms of her DUI probation by missing alcohol counseling sessions.

“We only change our behavior when we reach the tipping point; when the pain exceeds the pleasure”, says Human Behavior & Relationship Expert, Patrick Wanis PhD. “Lohan has used her second and third chances to continue partying which only served to encourage and endorse her behavior but now the pain of jail could actually be her gain. The judge may have chosen to punish Lindsay Lohan but he is also helping her because once we get to the conscious awareness that our behavior is creating excessive pain, then and only then do we choose to change and this is what will most likely happen with Lindsay Lohan. Recall she only spend 90 minutes in jail in 2007, stemming from arrests for drunken driving and cocaine possession and rehab thus far hasn’t worked either. However, Lindsay Lohan’s real healing will only occur once she does what Britney Spears did and faces the demons from her relationship with her mother and father”, concludes Dr. Wanis.

Talking points:

*** The one thing that controls our behavior – The Pain and Pleasure Principle

*** Possible psychological motivations for Lohan’s behavior – dysfunctional relationships with her mother and father

*** Lesson from Britney Spears – Britney turned her life around once she began healing her relationship with her father; Britney who was guided into entertainment from childhood says she won’t allow her children to become famous, enter Hollywood and showbiz “If my sons told me they wanted to be in the entertainment business, I’d lock them in their rooms until they turned 30.” Lindsay Lohan began her career as a child fashion model before making her motion picture debut in Disney’s 1998 remake of The Parent Trap at the age of 11. In July 2007, Dr. Wanis accurately summed up that “Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan are all suffering from the same issues: a domineering mother and a poor relationship with father…Each of the Brat Pack’s mothers lords it over them and pines for the fame almost as badly as the daughters -as exemplified by reports that Britney is looking into a restraining order against her mother.” Wanis added that “While each of the Brat Pack’s fathers was absent during the crucial formative years from adolescence to adulthood the result is a loss of a sense of justice, right and wrong, avoidance of responsibility and fears of commitment and rejection.”

*** The motivations behind Lindsay Lohan’s fingernail polish which read “F..k U” – anger, resentment and frustration – lashing out at the world in the only way she can.

* Lohan told the judge “I’m not taking this as a joke, it’s my life, and it’s my career … I’ve learned from my experiences, I take responsibility for my actions.” Lohan believed she was complying with the judge’s order to go to alcohol counseling classes once a week because the education program gave her permission to skip and reschedule appointments.

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  Continue reading “When pain equals gain – Lindsay Lohan” »

The following is a press release about Sex and the City and the ways it has emasculated men. You can also read the interview Patrick Wanis PhD gave to Grazia Magazine about Sex and the City. Click here:  http://patrickwanis.com/blog/index.php/2010/05/28/satc-how-it-changed-men-and-women/

Sex and the City has created and shaped the 21st century woman but it also emasculated men in the process says one relationship expert & therapist .

“In just over 12 years, Sex and the City has encouraged women to be freer, to be more independent, to embrace their sexuality, and to embrace their new sense of identity; and as the new woman emerges, men are left behind feeling lost about their own identity and what women really want or expect” says Human Behavior & Relationship Expert, Patrick Wanis PhD.  “Sex and the City has taught women that they no longer need to follow the traditional path – they can find value and self-worth in something greater than just being a housewife: ‘I’m here and I have greater purpose than just serving a man. I can be a career woman. I can be a housewife. I can be a sexual woman. I can be a mother. I can be a girlfriend. I can be many things.’ But Sex and the City has also created the female hyper confident sexual hunter in Kim Cattrall’s character, Samantha Jones, the cougar who uses men as objects and whom also intimidates men that are used to being the hunter.”

Wanis points out that “In SATC 2, we still see the characters unsatisfied with their current lives in spite of marriage, motherhood or a successful career and this only confuses men who are already wrestling with their own sense of self-worth with the new 21st century woman who is independent and successful in her own right and who can look after herself financially. These women are very independent. They’re very powerful. They have their own money. They establish their own identity in ways other than simply being a housewife, being a sexual object or being subservient to a man.”

According to Wanis SATC 2 also reinforces the belief by men that women are never satisfied with what they have or who they are, and are obsessed with shopping, clothes, materialism and exhibitionism, and; they simply expect too much from men. “Sarah Jessica Parker’s character Carrie is quickly bored by her marriage to Chris Noth and complains that she wants to go out and party in NYC while Kristin Davis’ character Charlotte seems so unsatisfied by raising children. The message to men, for those that might see the film, is women are selfish, never really happy and have too high expectations, particularly in the 21st century.”

***** Originally from Australia, Patrick Wanis PhD, is a Celebrity Life-Coach, Author, Expert in Human Behavior and Relationships and a Clinical Hypnotherapist with a PhD in Health Psychology. Wanis has appeared on FOX News, MSNBC, Extra, the Montel Williams Show, Mike and Juliet, Cosmo, Rolling Stone, InTouch Weekly, Dating on Demand, E! TV, Vh1, Date.com, Matchmaker.com, etc. Wanis is the first person ever to do Clinical Hypnotherapy on national television. WGN Chicago and Syndicated TV show, “The Daily Buzz” anointed him “The Woman Expert” and FOX News pronounced him “A voice for women.” Over five million people have read Wanis’ books in English and Spanish. www.patrickwanis.com

Jesse James continues to play the victim claiming he cheated because his father was abusive but Jesse James’ real problem is that he has a low emotional IQ says one relationship expert & therapist .

“Jesse James says he is now deeply sorry, that he wanted to get caught and he threw away a good thing – his marriage to Sandra Bullock but Jesse James has very low emotional intelligence – he has no control over his compulsive desires; he cannot delay gratification and he easily gives into impulses” says Human Behavior & Relationship Expert, Patrick Wanis PhD.  “When a person suffers from low emotional intelligence – they are not aware of their emotions, cannot control or manage them and often have no thought or concern about how their behavior affects others. This is Jesse James. He didn’t think about or care about the consequences of his actions – the impact his behavior would have on his wife and his family until it was too late and he began to suffer.”
Continue reading “Jesse James still doesn’t get it” »

(Read the full article about why women cheat at http://patrickwanis.com/blog/index.php/2010/02/17/why-women-cheat-2/ )

The word cheating is often associated with men – Tiger Woods, John Edwards, Elliot Spitzer and Governor Mark Sanford, but the latest statistics reveal women cheat on their husbands equally as much as men – one in five married women has had an affair.

Why do women cheat on their husbands?

Put it down to The Putt Putt Syndrome, says one relationship expert.

The Putt Putt Syndrome is a new movie, a dark comedy by director and producer, Allen Cognata; it had its New York City screening last Friday and coming to Los Angeles in March. (Trailer and more on the movie below.)

Human Behavior & Relationship Expert, Patrick Wanis PhD, the exclusive relationship expert to the new movie says that “Women cheat for different reasons to men – when they feel invisible and their needs aren’t met.”

“The Putt Putt Syndrome is a real and common occurrence where both partners putt along on contentment; the man is in mid-life crisis and the woman is disillusioned by a one-minute romp, feeling lonely, isolated and neglected by her husband who is lost in his work while she is lost in the children and maybe her own career. Gone is the romance and excitement and they have become roommates – the woman feels invisible, she’s not being heard, and with plenty of opportunity and temptation around her, she seeks to have her needs met elsewhere…cheating occurs”

  Continue reading “Why women cheat” »

On Valentine’s Day, we expect our partner to show and prove to us the depth of their love, and if he or she doesn’t or if we are single or alone, Valentine’s can be a devastating day.

“We often create our own loneliness”, says Patrick Wanis PhD, Human Behavior & Relationship Expert and author of “Find Love Fast” and “Get Over It.” We close up, shut down, stop trusting or simply lock ourselves inside the house and do fake talk on the internet. Our attitude can shun away others and cause loneliness. For example, if you are a woman, stop trying to be so independent that no man wants to be around you because he feels you don’t need him at all.”

Dr. Wanis says we must take action to experience love and says there are five simple steps to overcoming loneliness:

Continue reading “Overcoming loneliness on Valentine’s Day” »

“The army psychiatrist who killed 13 people fits the profile of a mass murderer as does the Orlando shooter” say Human Behavior Expert, Dr. Patrick Wanis

Dr. Wanis says “There are tell-tale warning signs and characteristics of mass killers and mass murderers and Major Nidal Malik Hassan who killed 13 people most likely felt like an outsider and a victim with a persecution complex compounded by his religious beliefs.”

(See further below for the full list of the profile of a mass murderer.)

Dr. Wanis told Russ Morley 850 WFTL radio that “Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan had been taunted for being a Muslim and for his ethnicity. He was not married so he may not have had a very good support system. He didn’t want to be deployed; he seemed to be disillusioned with and against the war.

“This starts to fit into the profile of a mass murderer which can include a possible exacerbation of aggressiveness and tendency to violence if he prescribed himself psychiatric medication. There’s a good chance that he has withdrawn socially because if he was being taunted, then who was his support system when he wasn’t living in his home state.

  Continue reading “Pyschiatrist killer fits profile of a mass murderer” »

The following is a transcript of Russ Morley, host of 850 WFTL radio interviewing Celebrity Life Coach and Human Behavior Expert, Patrick Wanis Ph.D. and Dr. Vicki Panaccione, founder of the Better Parenting Institute about the five Florida teens who allegedly doused a 15-year-old boy with rubbing alcohol and set him on fire as an act of revenge. This is a second interview given by Patrick Wanis on this topic; the first aired October 15, a few days after the incident. Click here to read that interview: “Teens burn boy – psychopaths & violent behavior”. This second interview deals with the topic of the troubled past of these boys and whether or not they can be rehabilitated and whether or not they will continue to commit these sort of crimes.”

Good Morning on the WFTL Morning News. Now here’s your host, Russ Morley.

Dr. Nick Namias:     

The last time I spoke to you all, we said that we weren’t in the woods yet and I would say at this point, we’re now into it and we’re continuing critical. But it’s going the way we expect someone with this big of a burn to go. And we’re still in, you know, respiratory failure on the ventilator. We have done one operation to remove the burns surgically. He has got the burns covered now with cadaver skin.

Russ Morley:             That’s Dr. Nick Namias, Medical Director of the Burn Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital updating the condition of 15-year-old Mikey Brewer, the Deerfield teenager. Those – you know the story. Back in October 12, doused with rubbing alcohol, set on fire by his schoolmates after an argument. Now, they’re trying to figure out what to do with these kids. Are they going to try them as adults? Are they going to try them as kids? Are they going to charge them with – what crimes they’re going to charge them with? One that supposedly doused him; one set him on fire; the charges will be different.

But the questions remain this morning. What motivated these kids? What was happening to them? What was in their heads? What was happening at home that would even open their minds up to something like this? Joining us this morning is Dr. Patrick Wanis, human behavior expert and celebrity life coach out of Miami and one of his colleagues, Dr. Vicki Panaccione, child psychologist and the founder of Better Parenting Institute. And Vicki, I’ll let you guys, you and Patrick work it out as to who answers these questions this morning.

And you’re based out of Florida too, aren’t you Vicki?

Vicki Panaccione:    Yes, out of Melbourne, Florida.

Russ Morley:             Out of Melbourne. Okay. Just off the coast from us. Patrick, good morning. Thanks for being with us.

Patrick Wanis:          My pleasure, Russ. I guess the first thing we want to say –you’ll recall that in previous interviews discussing this case with you, I said that you would find out that these kids came from a really bad background. And in almost every case, there was a whole heap of crimes committed by the parents. There was domestic violence. There was child abuse. There was DUIs. There was shoplifting, impersonation, fraud, aggravated assault, battery, et cetera.

  Continue reading “Can teens who burned boy be rehabilitated?” »

“Jaycee Duggard is not just a kidnap victim, she is the victim of the Stockholm Syndrome and could be another Patty Hearst who bonded and expressed loyalty for her captors”, according to Human Behavior Expert, Dr. Patrick Wanis.

Dr. Wanis says “Jaycee Dugard had numerous interactions with the outside world but never chose to leave or reveal her identity and now released, she feels guilty over her bond with her abductor and father of her children, Phillip Garrido! This will be part three of the Stockholm Syndrome; part 2 was Patty Hearst’s story.”

Jaycee Duggard had interacted with customers of Garrido’s printing business – in person, via email and over the phone. Her abductor, Phillip Garrido even did a stint in prison during the 18 years she was kidnapped at his compound. Why did Jaycee Duggard not reveal her true identity? Why did she not try to escape?

Continue reading “Kidnapping victim another Patty Hearst?” »

Patrick Wanis is a featured Relationship and Human Behavior Expert for The National Association of Divorce for Women and Children.

Baby Boomers and Divorce: A Bumpy Road for Many?�
A first-of-its-kind national poll reveals how divorced boomers are holding up.

To determine if a consensus exists about how divorced baby boomers are holding up, a National Poll on Divorce was conducted by the National Association of Divorce for Women and Children and the Baby Boomer [Knowledge Center].

Participants in the poll were asked three fundamental questions about the divorce process, the relationship with their “former” spouse and inevitability the affects of divorce has on the dynamics of the family.

1.  What was the most challenging part of getting a divorce: custody of the children, dividing the assets or finances?

2.  What life skills would have been helpful when going through your divorce: stress management, coping skills and/or communication skills?

3.  What is your relationship now with your former spouse: amicable, have learned to tolerate each other for the sake of the children or can’t be in the same room together and do not speak to each other?

Continue reading “Baby Boomers and Divorce: A Bumpy Road for Many?” »