The Profile Dossier: Phil Stutz, the Therapist Offering Practical Tools to Help You Navigate Life
"The highest creative expression for a human being is to be able to create something new right in the face of adversity."
Phil Stutz doesn’t have time for what he likes to call “loose talk” between therapist and patient.
The renowned Hollywood psychotherapist has built a reputation around action. He offers his clients practical “tools” to help them grapple with the endless challenges they’ll have to endure throughout their lives.
“In Western culture, the assumption is I have to have a certain level of success in order to feel good about myself, even to feel human, but it’s not true,” he told The Los Angeles Times. “What you have to do is take action before you know who you are. Before you know what’s supposed to happen. If you can do that, then you can become confident.”
But before you can begin the journey of self-improvement, Stutz says you need to accept one fundamental truth, which is that there are three aspects of reality no one can avoid. They are pain, uncertainty, and constant work. “What will make you happy is the process,” he says. “You actually have to learn how to love the process of dealing with those three things. That’s where the tools come in.”
Stutz developed these practical tools out of necessity. When he was nine years old, Stutz inadvertently became his parents’ pseudo-therapist after his brother passed away at three years old. “My parents, who had limited emotional resources, never recovered,” Stutz writes in the book, The Tools. “Every evening my father would come home from work, sit in his rocking chair, and worry. Over the next few years, I realized my job was to reassure him. In effect, I became my father’s shrink.”
Being under that kind of pressure as a kid gave Stutz the strength to address his patients’ pain the only way he knew how: through his instincts. Over the decades, Stutz rejected the traditional notion of therapist as passive listener and objective third-party. Instead, he inserted himself into his clients’ narratives and armed them with practical tools he had developed over the years.
“The most profound value of a tool is that it takes you beyond what happens inside your head,” he writes. “It connects you to a world infinitely bigger than you are, a world of limitless forces.”
The tools he has developed have helped his clients stop obsessive worry, discover true confidence, extinguish out-of-control anger, and even develop an unshakeable resilience in the face of tragedy and chaos.
As Stutz says, “The highest creative expression for a human being is to be able to create something new right in the face of adversity, and the worse the adversity, the greater the opportunity.”
Here’s what we can learn from the therapist whose work can offer relief from your most persistent problems while helping you restore hope in a higher power that’s constantly working in your favor.
✨ The rest of this newsletter is only available for premium members of The Profile. Their support makes this work possible. If you’re not already a premium member, consider upgrading your subscription below for access to the full Profile Dossier. ✨
READ.
On using the tools: In the book, The Tools, Stutz and his colleague Barry Michels share how they’ve helped their A-list clients work through insecurity, trauma, anger, lack of willpower, negativity or avoidance. Introducing their five simple techniques, namely The Reversal of Desire, Active Love, Inner Authority, The Grateful Flow and Jeopardy, Stutz and Michels explain what they are plus how and when to use them.
On becoming Hollywood’s ‘open secret:’ Stutz and Michels’s brand of therapy is heavily prescriptive and not always intuitive. Here’s how they use the tools to help patients overcome writer’s block, stagefright, insecurity, and the vagaries of the entertainment industry.
On embracing life’s uncertainty: In this Q&A, Stutz says, “Happiness is not an accomplishment. Happiness is a process.” The process he’s referring to is the process of working to fight off the negativity that pops up as a result of our inner critic that he’s dubbed “Part X.”
LISTEN.
On the importance of discipline: In this podcast, Stutz talks about his experience being the subject of a documentary, what it was like being a psychiatrist at Rikers Island prison, and how he can tell if someone is a narcissist.
WATCH.
On realizing your greatest potential: This is a fascinating interview in which both Stutz and Michels deconstruct their methods for helping us tackle fear and embrace pain. The duo has a counterintuitive tool that helps us understand how desiring pain diminishes its potent effect on our life.
POLINA’S TAKEAWAYS.
Start by working on your ‘life force’: Stutz believes that we should constantly be working on our “life force,” which is our most primal relationship with ourselves. If you’re sad, depressed, or plagued by negativity, he believes working on your “life force” will offer immediate benefits. Stutz visualizes the “life force” as a pyramid consisting of three levels: your relationship with your body (sleep, diet, and fitness), your people (connection, community, and relationships), and yourself (activating the subconscious through writing). If you can master all three, then you’ll be in alignment with your “life force,” which will allow you to tap into an abundance of energy and well-being.
Identify the inner villain in the movie of your life: Stutz wants you to imagine that your life mirrors a movie in which you’re the superhero constantly fighting the villain whose sole goal is to sabotage you. Stutz calls the judgemental, negative side of you, “Part X.” “It’s an invisible force that wants to keep you from changing or growing,” he says. “It wants to block your evolution. It wants to block your potential.” So how do you defeat this inner enemy? Labeling Part X is the first step to becoming aware that you can fight it. Try this exercise to identify it in your own life: Think of a time in your life when you felt stuck and you were unable to reach an important goal. Ask yourself: “What inside of me made it impossible to move forward?” It could be vicious self-criticism, incessant worry, or unrelenting negativity. Now, personify that force and see it as a villain trying to hold you back. Now, say the words: “That’s Part X. That is my enemy.” This creates space between you and that inner villain. The next time you begin to worry or start to lose your temper, say to yourself, “That’s Part X,” and begin to reject it and push it away as though it’s a separate entity from your true self. You can use the “tools” in this section as weapons to defeat Part X.
See your daily habits as a string of pearls: Stutz would like to give you a visual: Every day that you’re alive, you’re making a necklace from a string and pearls. So if you were to draw it, it would look like a line, a circle, and then another a line, and then another circle, and so on. Each circle (or “pearl”) represents an action. So one circle equals one action. But here’s the catch: Each action has the same value. That means that taking a shower and submitting a book proposal has the same value: It’s just an action that you take that propels your forward. Stutz says his identity equals the sum of the habits with which he takes action. “If there’s a failure — or a big success,” he says, “you’re going to keep going. ‘I am the person that puts the next pearl on the string.’ That’s it.” Stutz also notes that each pearl has a dark spot inside, which represents an imperfection. No action will be perfect, but that doesn’t matter, he explains. The key is to keep moving forward. Remember, every step forward is still a step forward, regardless of how small or imperfect.
Acknowledge your shadow self: “You may be lonely, but you are never alone,” Stutz writes. “Inside each of us is a second self, another being.” Building on this idea from Carl Jung, Stutz explains that each of us possesses a ‘shadow self’ that we can never get rid of. It’s the part of us that makes us feel ashamed — the part of us we’d rather hide from others. “The Shadow appears as the sum total of the weakest, most flawed, inferior or even disgusting parts of yourself,” he says. The only way to keep your shadow from keeping you stuck in the past is to visualize it, honor it, and acknowledge it. For instance, my shadow is the lonely 9-year-old girl who was regularly teased for not speaking the language or knowing the cultural norms of a new country. I’ve written about this, and it has allowed me to understand that we all have insecurities, which if we embrace, may become our greatest strengths.
Practice active love: What do you do when someone has wronged you? Do you scream, withdraw, or plot revenge? You may be justified in your reaction, but Stutz explains, ultimately it doesn’t matter. Once you reach this state, you’re only damaging yourself. Here’s the tool he recommends instead: Close your eyes and imagine a whole universe full of infinite love. Now, imagine your heart expanding to absorb all of that love. As your heart contracts back to its normal size, imagine all that love concentrated in the center of your chest. Now, send all of that love from your chest directly to the person who has wronged you. When the love enters the other person, feel it enter their heart as it creates a sense a oneness with them. Then relax and feel all the energy you gave away return to you. The beauty of this tool is that it doesn’t require you to be passive and let people mistreat you. It works to change your inner state, giving you permission to activate inner peace, which is something only you can give to yourself.
(If you want more, you can explore Stutz’s full library of tools here.)
QUOTES TO REMEMBER.
“Real change requires you to change your behavior — not just your attitude.”
“Human beings are only happy when they’re reaching toward their full potential.”
“Inner strength comes only to those who move forward in the face of adversity.”
“The future may bring you darkness, but it can’t take away your ability to create light.”
✨ Pre-order my new book, HIDDEN GENIUS below:
I really enjoyed this Polina. I only know of Phil Stutz through the documentary he did with Jonah Hill and was always curious where I could learn more about him - now, I know!