Vitals Spotlight – We Give the Doctor an Exam

Dr. Drew

Dr. Drew was made aware of all the sexual and drug allegations between Mackenzie Phillips and her father, John Phillips, lead singer of The Mamas and the Papas, upon the start of taping of the new season of Celebrity Rehab.

Because of the Doctor Patient confidentiality agreement, Dr. Drew did not find it necessary to  and parade it out to the media and instead kept it private.  However, only several months later Mackenzie went public with all the details during this week’s interview with Oprah Winfrey.

“I know Mackenzie to be practicing a rigorous program of honesty,” Dr. Drew told Access Hollywood on Wednesday. “She would not be sober right now if she were not being completely honest all the time. She may have had distortions about that relationship but there is no doubt whatever happened severely traumatized her.”

Dr. Drew felt that a child brought up among such stardom with lack of normal parenting is doomed to fall for the same behavior that surrounds them.

“(John Phillips was) almost a cult leader, where he was sort of using mind control over people and telling them that his way of seeing things was the right way. When you’re a kid, you have no other way of seeing things and if you’re then given drugs and addicted at the same time, it’s hopeless for the young person.

John and Mackenzie Phillips (cbsnews.com)

This was a despicable situation.”

Dr. Drew touched on the family and step-mothers coming out blaming her of exaggeration and her skewed sense of reality because of her long dependence on drugs.

“I’m sure the family [has] very conflicted feelings about this,” he continued. “There may be aspects of this that are inaccurate but there is just no doubt in my mind that Mackenzie had severe trauma growing up and I didn’t find any other sources of trauma than this in my work with her.”

According to Vitals, Dr. David Drew Pinsky is an internist specializing in addiction medicine.  He had acquired his MD at the four star University of South California and completed his residency training  in internal medicine at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, CA.

Stay tuned to see what Season 3 of Celebrity Rehab will reveal, with a cast that includes Heidi Fleiss, Dennis Rodman and Tom Sizemore, to name a few.  The season premiere is on January 10, 2010.

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