Next! When Abnormal Becomes Normal! : Talk shows: When Sally and Montel parade the truly weird on TV, we get numb to the bizarre, two researchers say. Some hosts countercharge--but Oprah questions herself.

C hildren Who Turn In Their Parents Women Who Fall for Their Stalkers Nude Waitresses Who Serve Hamburgers

Sound like anyone you know?

For the vast majority of Americans, the answer is no, says Penn State University sociologist Vicki Abt. But to watch daytime TV talk shows, you would expect the answer to be yes. And that is just one of the many things about these shows that is undermining America’s collective psyche and social norms, Abt says.

In a blistering essay that has generated anger, anxiety and a counterattack among talk-show stars, Abt and co-author Mel Seesholtz of Penn State charge that Oprah, Phil, Sally and the rest are so devoted to portraying deviant, bizarre and unusual behavior that their millions of daily viewers are becoming numb to what is normal and abnormal, right and wrong, public and private.

Moreover, says Abt, whose paper appeared in the summer issue of the Journal of Popular Culture, the shows make a mockery of psychotherapy and further exploit people who are typically down and out.

Nudist Families Who Swap Mates

Grandmothers Who Strip for Fun

Odious! Abt says.

“Nothing is forbidden anymore,” she says. “Television emphasizes the deviant so that it becomes normal. If you really are normal, no one cares.”

Abt’s essay, based on 60 hours of talk-show viewing during the winter of 1991-92, has been dismissed by a number of talk-show producers but caught the eye of the queen of daytime chatter: Oprah Winfrey. Winfrey has invited Abt to appear on her show, tentatively scheduled to air next week.

“I read (Abt’s) paper and I thought, ‘Well, she made some interesting points about blurring the line,’ ” says Winfrey, in a telephone interview from her Chicago office. “I questioned myself about whether we have ever done that. If we have, I feel guilty about it, because I want to uplift and enlighten.”

Others, too, are questioning the value of talk shows. Feeling increasingly uncomfortable about their roles, a large group of media psychologists spent hours at the annual American Psychological Assn. meeting last month in Los Angeles planning tactics to encourage more responsible and helpful talk-show content.

“I think most media psychologists feel like I do: that talk shows are a double-edged sword. It’s hazardous or helpful to your health depending on how it’s done,” says Laguna Beach psychologist Ellen McGrath, president of the APA’s media division and a frequent talk-show guest.

Abt says her goal is to inspire a debate about whether talk shows help people or do more damage. But she leaves no doubt as to her view: “There have always been dysfunctional people and dysfunctional families, but never before have they been so much in our face.”

The result is that people who watch talk shows grow increasingly desensitized to bizarre, horrible and sick behavior and feel no responsibility to intervene or even care, Abt says.

“The more you show deviance, the more it becomes no big deal. And when you see something that really should have upset you, and it’s no big deal, this is very dangerous.”

Abt’s paper cites several destructive sins waged by talk-show hosts, including:

* Acting as pseudo-professional counselors without suitable credentials to do so.

* Creating an insincere atmosphere of caring and helpfulness.

* Encouraging a culture of “victims” who are not responsible for their actions.

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Take this show, Abt says: Sally Jessy Raphael has staged a reunion between a father and the four grown daughters he abandoned 20 years prior. The women cry. Sally tells them:

“Forgiving is so important. . . . Why don’t you tell your father you love him and forgive him?”

To the father, she demands: “Say you’re sorry.”

Who is Sally to impart this advice? Abt asks.

The shows also create false illusions of caring, she says, a tactic that exploits vulnerable people.

“These hosts act like your best friend. Well, they are not going to be your best friend,” Abt says. “Oprah is not there to listen to your problems four days (after taping).”

Neither is the advice that is dispensed particularly useful, Abt says, although talk-show hosts like to say they serve a valuable role in educating the public about such issues as domestic violence and incest.

“What they should do is say this is purely entertainment,” she says. “The reason they are doing this is for ratings. That is the bottom line.”

In their paper, Abt and Seesholtz note that the original “Donahue” show of the 1960s centered on celebrity, author interviews or political agendas. And while stars and politicians are occasional guests, most TV talk shows today focus on “real-life private people trying to ‘fix themselves’ through therapy,” they write.

But, they say, the true tenets of therapy are breached continually on talk shows, including ensuring a patient’s privacy, going slowly, evaluating the patient’s history, dealing only with issues that the patient is ready to handle, tailoring therapy to fit the patient and providing referrals and follow-up care.

While a therapist can be sued for malpractice if those tenets are significantly violated, “A television talk show (host) as well as any laymen, unlicensed therapists, gurus, best-selling authors can say anything they want to troubled people whom they have only just met--as long as it’s entertaining,” Abt and Seesholtz charge.

Perhaps most offensive, Abt says, is the ease with which talk shows portray many of its guests as victims who are not responsible for their actions. “‘Rather than being mortified, ashamed or trying to hide their stigma, guests willingly and eagerly discuss their child molesting, sexual quirks and criminal records in an effort to seek ‘understanding’ for their particular disease.”

They cite another “Sally” episode, “When Your Best Friend Is Sleeping With Your Father.” A daughter confronting her best friend and father onstage was advised to “just love them both and accept the situation.”

But, Abt says: “The new couple were let off the hook by the audience when they said they weren’t to blame because they didn’t plan to fall in love--’It just happened.’ ”

Abt is not alone in her sounding of this particular alarm. Several political figures, included California Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, have recently bemoaned the “Oprah-ization of the jury pool.”

Lundgren, in a recent Time magazine interview, suggested that too many potential jurists are watching talk shows and sponging up the notion that everyone is a victim. Juries with this collective conscience are increasingly likely to make allowances for someone’s bad deed based on mitigating circumstances, such as child abuse or mental illness, he warns.

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Despite the fact that her name has been co-opted to describe the corruption of America’s jury pools, Oprah Winfrey offers the most socially constructive show, say Abt and other media watchers.

“I really do believe that talk shows do more good than not good,” Winfrey says. “I certainly believe that is true of our show.”

Winfrey says she has subtly remodeled her show to avoid the sensational, silly and bizarre. She says she underwent a revelation earlier this year when she began watching some of her competitors on TV monitors while she worked out at the gym.

“For the first time this year, I understood the criticism (about talk shows),” she says. “I never watched anyone else before.”

Her recent shows have been on such topics as how to stop gossip, how to protect your child’s safety in your home, and how to safeguard your home from break-ins.

Winfrey complains that whatever she does, she is sullied by being lumped with the other talk shows. But representatives of other shows say they have nothing to be ashamed of.

Abt and Seesholtz’s paper is not based on any science or even a survey, says Lee Fryd, director of media relations for the “Sally Jessy Raphael” show. Nor are the shows based on deviant topics, she says:

“There are a lot (of topics) that are universal. We did a show on mothers-in-law who don’t like their sons’ new wives. Why do you think these shows are popular? Because the viewing audience can identify with these real-life problems. These are universal problems.”

Fryd credits talk shows with helping to erase taboos and myths that cripple society.

“If people didn’t get up there and talk about incest, it would never come to light,” she says.

Indeed, talk shows inform, give people needed attention, allow them to get started toward healing, and provide a safe and supportive forum for sensitive exchanges, says New York psychologist Gilda Carle, a relationships therapist and frequent talk-show expert guest.

She compares talk shows to “neighbors across the fence giving advice to each other.”

“So often, people feel like no one is listening,” Carle says. “When someone tells their story (on a show), they have everyone’s undivided attention. That may be a sorry state of affairs, but that’s the way it is. People want to be heard.”

The shows don’t pretend to do real therapy, Carle argues, only to raise awareness, such as the recent spate of shows on domestic violence.

“This is not instantaneous therapy. All we can do is give them a start. And I think we can accomplish extraordinary goals. For example, women who have thought they were deserving of abuse are now hearing, ‘No, no, no.’ ”

As for airing one’s dirty laundry, Carle says that’s an individual’s choice.

In one case, a man asked to appear on Raphael’s show to tell his wife that he had cheated on her.

“When we suggested that this might not be the best time and place to tell her, he said, ‘I know my wife best, and I know she would most appreciate me saying this in a public forum,’ ” recalls Carle, who was asked to appear alongside the couple.

The show went on. The woman was told and broke down, sobbing.

But there was a bright side, Carle says. True to her husband’s prediction, the hapless woman rallied and said: “If my husband insists on airing this on television, he must love me.”

Adds Carle: “I was able to hold her when this all happened. That could never have happened if he had told her in their living room or in their car, where she would not have had a supportive audience and someone to help her through the shock.

“As for airing your dirty laundry in public, well, some people prefer this as a way of support.”

*

Psychologist Lawrence Balter is neutral about whether talk shows help or hurt. A popular child psychologist in New York, he has appeared on many shows.

“People’s opinions are often not clearly distinguished from actual facts and evidence. So the audience might be misled,” says Balter, who teaches workshops to doctors and psychologists on how to communicate their ideas on television.

But there are rewarding, moments. He recalls appearing on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” during the Persian Gulf War.

“Mothers were over there. Kids were left behind. People were very frightened. The show got across to people how to talk to their kids and deal with it,” Balter says. “That was an excellent service to offer people. . . . A responsible talk-show format has the potential of doing tremendous good.”

McGrath, executive director of the Psychology Center in Laguna Beach, says she wholly agrees with many of Abt and Seesholtz’s criticisms and is particularly concerned about what happens to guests after the show ends.

“Being on the show is a seductive experience (for the guests),” says McGrath, an expert on depression. “But there is an enormous letdown afterward. There is no safety net. Half of the people are very upset after going on. I end up having to do a lot of post-trauma therapy in the Green Room.”

But, like Balter, she agrees to do some shows because of the opportunity to do good. After doing a “Montel Williams Show” on depression, McGrath invited the audience to write to her if they wanted a free information packet on depression. She received more than 1,000 requests.

“These shows (tell us) what kinds of problems people have and what potential solutions they can consider,” she says. “There is enormous potential to help people.”

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Talk shows seem to be moving away from the more deviant and inflammatory topics, McGrath notes. And to encourage this trend, the American Psychological Assn.’s media division recently updated its ethical guidelines to help psychologists and talk-show producers avoid inappropriate or hurtful situations, she says.

The group also is developing a TV consultants directory for talk-show producers that will list psychologists willing to help with responsible program development (including choosing guests to avoid exploiting vulnerable people) and plan a program after the show to assist guests who need therapy or support in their own communities.

Moreover, there is an increasing push for more research on the effects of talk shows, McGrath says. In one of the first studies on this subject, she found that people who watch several talk shows a day are significantly more depressed than the general population.

If talk shows do want to do good, leaving viewers morose is not the way to go about it, McGrath says.

“When you see 15 or 17 major talk shows and this proliferation of Victimville, you know it has all been said and done. I think that wave is ready to break. People are going to get sick and tired of it. They see and feel that it is not good for them.”

Friends of Yours?

“Shotgun Weddings” (Ricki Lake)

“Man Engaged to Three Pregnant Women” (Jenny Jones)

“People Who Fell in Love With Sally’s Guests” (Sally Jessy Raphael)

“Women Who Play Dumb for Men” (Montel Williams)

“Women Who Want to Pose for Penthouse” (Jerry Springer)