The Tools is a new book by Phil Stutz and Barry Michels.
Together they have helped their A-list clients work through whatever has held them back – be it insecurity, trauma, anger, willpower, negativity or avoidance – and achieve their greatest work and find a deep level of fulfilment.
Michels, in the words of a former patient, is an “open secret” in Hollywood. Using esoteric precepts adapted from Jungian psychology, he and Phil Stutz, a psychiatrist who is his mentor, have developed a program designed to access the creative power of the unconscious and address complaints common among their clientele: writer’s block, stagefright, insecurity, the vagaries of the entertainment industry. “The Jungians I’ve always been uncomfortable with, because they kind of drift,” Stutz says. “They say that the dreams will tell you what to do, and that’s bullshit.” Instead, he and Michels tell their patients what to do. Their brand of therapy is heavily prescriptive and not always intuitive. “I had one guy who was terrified of public speaking,” Michels says. “He had to learn to make more passionate love to his wife. If he could expose himself to his wife and really let go, I knew he’d be able to speak publicly.” He hands out three-by-five index cards inscribed with Delphic pronouncements like “THE HIERARCHY WILL NEVER BE CLEAR.” His starting rate is three hundred and sixty dollars an hour. READ MORE
