Dr. Oh Eun-young of ‘My Golden Kids’ Puts Therapy on TV

SEOUL — Appointment day was lastly right here. The mother and father had waited for a month to see the famend psychiatrist in South Korea about their little one’s points. They entered the room, the physician arrived, and the door closed.

Then the teleprompters turned on, the cameras began rolling, and the producer shouted, “Action!”

So started the taping of “My Golden Kids,” one of the vital well-liked actuality exhibits in South Korea. Reigning over the episode was Dr. Oh Eun-young, a specialist in little one and adolescent psychiatry who has been referred to as the “god of parenting.”

Her mantra: “There is no problem child, only problems in parenting.”

In a rustic the place superstar is commonly personified by younger megastars churned out by an exacting entertainment business, Dr. Oh, 57, occupies a singular cultural place. She attracts hundreds of thousands of viewers on tv and the web, shelling out recommendation on parenting and marriage.

By means of a portfolio of exhibits — and books, movies and lectures — she has redefined remedy for Koreans, blown up the historically non-public relationship between physician and affected person and launched the nation to accessible vocabulary on psychological health points.

“She is the mother that you wish that you would have had in your childhood,” stated Dr. Yesie Yoon, a Korean American psychiatrist in New York who grew up watching Dr. Oh’s exhibits. “People really put their personal feelings toward popular figures in the media. And I feel like she’s serving a kind of good mother role to a lot of Korean people.”

Her success is all of the more notable in a rustic the place taboos about in search of psychological health therapy have deep roots and getting remedy has historically been a furtive enterprise.

South Koreans attest to Dr. Oh’s function in destigmatizing psychiatric therapy, and the truth that some are keen to share their struggles on her exhibits is a watershed cultural second. Practitioners in Dr. Oh’s discipline say it's changing into simpler to steer South Koreans to get remedy or take treatment.

In South Korea, about one in 4 adults has reported having a psychological dysfunction in his or her lifetime, with just one in 55 receiving therapy in 2021, in line with the Nationwide Psychological Health Middle. (One in 5 American adults obtained psychological health therapy in 2020, in line with the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.) South Korea has among the many world’s highest suicide charges; it was the fifth main explanation for dying in 2020, the federal government says. Amongst folks of their 20s, it accounted for 54 p.c of deaths.

When Dr. Oh began her profession as a medical physician in 1996, many South Koreans related psychological sickness with weak point, she stated in an interview at a counseling heart within the rich Seoul district of Gangnam. Some even believed that folks might turn out to be mentally unwell from finding out psychiatry. Through the years, these attitudes have reworked.

“Compared to when I took my first steps as a doctor,” she stated, “more people have realized that talking to a psychiatrist is something helpful — not something embarrassing at all.”

Dr. Yang Soyeong, a psychiatrist training in Seoul, agreed: “Parents can be afraid of having their mistakes pointed out by a psychiatrist. But because Dr. Oh does that so gently on television, I think that has lowered people’s apprehension for visiting the clinic.”

America has lengthy made stars out of one-name medical personalities like Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz, who've drawn criticism for his or her ways. Dr. Oh’s superstar has additionally spilled out of the medical area. In Seoul, a life-size cutout of her stands in entrance of a cell phone dealership promoting the provider’s household plans. She seems in TV commercials for a medical insurance firm.

Dr. Oh, who runs one hospital and 4 counseling facilities, has been utilizing TV as a therapeutic platform since 2005, when she began her broadcast profession giving lectures about childhood developmental problems.

On “My Child Has Changed,” which aired from 2005 to 2015, every episode was devoted to a household’s issues. Dr. Oh entered their properties for counseling periods, and the takeaway from many episodes was that loads of youngsters’s issues had been attributable to parental abuse, lack of awareness or negligence.

In a signature flourish of the present, Dr. Oh would dispose of each object the mother and father used to beat their youngsters — again scratchers, umbrellas, shoehorns, damaged chair legs.

When “My Golden Kids” launched in 2020, the pandemic, with its social restrictions, was forcing folks to confront family members’ issues full on. Relatively than visiting herself, Dr. Oh now sends a digicam crew into properties to report what transpires; clips are aired when households focus on points within the studio.

The issues proven have run the gamut: A 9-year-old yelling at his mom, a 5-year-old self-harming, a 12-year-old stealing from his mom, a 14-year-old having unexplained, power vomiting.

Even with a household’s consent, the in-home cameras can really feel extremely intrusive. However giving a physician the possibility to evaluate household interactions in real-life settings, not the confines of a psychiatrist’s workplace, has diagnostic benefits, consultants say.

“It’s a child psychiatrist’s dream,” stated Dr. Yoon, the New York psychiatrist. “In my clinic, I only address and discuss the things that they bring to me. I may ask questions to dig deeper that they may not answer, and they may not answer truthfully.”

The present illustrates how a lot work the mother and father do in following by means of with the physician’s recommendation. It additionally exhibits how change can take time, and the way previous points can resurface.

Since “My Golden Kids” started, Dr. Oh has expanded her TV empire to incorporate “Oh Eun-young’s Report: Marriage Hell,” by which she counsels {couples}; and “Dr. Oh’s Golden Clinic,” by which she advises people. She says she has a plan to sort out the nation’s low birthrate by easing folks’s worry of getting youngsters. She additionally hopes to function more Korean households who dwell overseas and encounter cultural and language limitations.

Dr. Oh was born untimely, and she or he stated the docs weren't certain she would survive. Till she was about 2, she was smaller than her friends and had a “difficult temperament”: choosy with meals, usually sick and crying each evening. She attributes her consolation with herself as an grownup to her mother and father, saying she had “received a lot of love from them and felt understood by them.”

She obtained bachelor’s and grasp’s levels from Yonsei College’s School of Drugs, and a medical diploma from Korea College’s School of Drugs. She married a physician, and their son is within the navy.

“We were all someone’s children at some point,” she stated. “The point isn’t to blame parents for every problem but to emphasize that they are incredibly important figures in children’s lives.”

At a current taping of “My Golden Kids,” a panel of comedians and celebrities appeared. They and Dr. Oh greeted the mother and father of a kid who had refused to attend faculty for months. Video of the household’s residence life was proven. The physician then shared her suggestions.

She has critics. Lee Yoon-kyoung, 51, an activist for schooling reform and parental rights and the mom of two excessive school-age sons, worries that Dr. Oh’s superstar may lead viewers to think about her phrases as gospel when there is perhaps a number of interpretations of the identical habits.

“Of course, we acknowledge her expertise,” Ms. Lee stated, “but some parents get a bit uncomfortable when people deem her opinions unconditionally true, as if her words were divine.”

Some viewers have questioned the knowledge, in addition to the privateness implications, of placing yelling, hitting households on tv. On “My Golden Kids,” Dr. Oh doesn't explicitly determine the youngsters, however faces will not be obscured, and oldsters state their very own names and name their youngsters by identify.

Movies of episodes have been uploaded to YouTube, producing humiliating feedback in regards to the households. Feedback have since been turned off. However some mother and father and psychological health professionals, noting that the web is ceaselessly, have demanded the present blur faces.

Dr. Oh says blurring might make it tougher for folks to empathize, inviting more abuse. Viewers, she stated, ought to take into account the issues televised as all a part of the human expertise. “The main reason I do these shows is that understanding children is the starting point of understanding people,” she stated.

Ban Su-jin, a 42-year-old mom of three from Incheon, had privateness considerations when she appeared on “My Golden Kids” in 2020 to seek the advice of a few son who feared leaving the home.

“My husband was worried that my son’s friends would make fun of him for having this problem,” she stated. However they agreed it was “worth risking anything.”

After the taping, she stated, her son’s anxiousness improved drastically. The episode drew some unfavorable messages, Ms. Ban stated, but additionally encouragement from buddies and neighbors.

“The episode,” she stated, “helped them understand how much pain my son had borne.”