Before getting started, Mr. Wanis pointed to a comment Ms. Spears made about her father, Jamie Spears, to the Post last April.

“I am praying for my father,” she told the paper at the time. “We have never had a good relationship. It's sad that all the men that have been in my life do not know how to accept a real woman's love. I am concentrating on my work and my life right now.”

This single quote, Mr. Wanis inferred, is far more telling than any of Ms. Spears’ recent outbursts.

“Ultimately, our happiness and peace of mind comes from what we feel and believe about ourselves and the world around us. Britney’s greatest challenges relate primarily to her father. She never felt understood by her father,” he said. “That [statement] relates to her subconscious, to the belief that she hasn’t been appreciated as a child by her father,” Mr. Wanis added, before moving on to tell us that it’s possible that Ms. Spears didn’t feel open enough to show affection to her father as a child.

“I would be working, in a very simple way, to determine: What are her beliefs about herself? Who in the world is she angry at? What is the real pain she is trying to escape? Where is the self-loathing coming from?”

Because the press is being told that Ms. Spears may not, at the end of the day, have a true-blue, clinical substance abuse problem—even though it’s widely known that she has been drinking and partying heavily—typical drug rehabilitation is not, in Mr. Wanis’ opinion, the answer to her problems.

“When she’s having these outbursts, like when she’s shaving her head, these are all examples—not of someone screaming out for help—but [of] someone who doesn’t like themselves,” Mr. Wanis said. “I would want to know, in greater detail, the dynamic of the relationship between her and her father, and the dynamic of her relationship between her and her mother.”

After determining the dynamics of Ms. Spears’ relationships with her mother and father, Mr. Wanis said he would establish Ms. Spears’ belief system—“her deeper feelings and emotions, such as anger or guilt or resentment or bitterness.”

Then, after all of this had been determined, Mr. Wanis said he would begin hypnosis therapy to help her release any negative, false beliefs.

“All that means is that if she’s angry at her father for doing something at a subconscious level, she’s replaying that [painful episode] like a movie. So what we do under hypnosis is—not to command her to do anything—but to go back and change those beliefs,” he told us, before listing the motions he would undergo with Ms. Spears during hypnotic therapy. “Number one: to make her realize that’s not happening any more. Number two: to help her understand why her father did this [negative thing]—it had nothing to do with her; there’s nothing wrong with her. Number three: to install a new belief system.”

In Mr. Wanis’ opinion, Ms. Spears “hasn’t fully matured emotionally—not mentally—but emotionally. She’s old enough to mother children, and she’s old enough to be a mother to them. But emotionally, she’s stuck at some age; she’s resenting her responsibilities, even though she has the money to give her all the support she needs to deal with them. She’s not at the level yet of accepting the responsibilities in her life,” he added. “She’s had problems with both her marriages—the one that lasted a day [to Jason Alexander], and then the one with Kevin [Federline]—and she obviously isn’t able to handle the responsibilities of motherhood.”

Before wrapping up our conversation, Mr. Wanis asked us to consider how Ms. Spears’ estranged mother, Lynne Spears, managed her daughter’s career for much her daughter’s life. “How much of that was what Britney wanted and how much of that was what her mother wanted?” Mr. Wanis wondered aloud.

“A lot of these pop stars—or even beauty pageant queens—are living the life that their mothers wanted,” he said.

According to an official police report obtained by TMZ, the 21-year-old actress was arrested early this morning in West Hollywood for driving under the influence of alcohol. Police stated, in part, that Ms. Barton was picked up after she was “seen straddling two lanes of traffic and failed to signal when making a turn.” (The full L.A. County Sheriff’s press release can be found here.)

“It’s astounding,” Mr. Wanis said after we broached the topic of the actress’ arrest. “And yet it’s not astounding. The majority of people [who confront substance abuse issues] are obsessed with treating the symptoms and not the causes.” Additionally, he said, people like Ms. Barton turn to drugs and/or alcohol in order to either numb a feeling or to create a feeling.

What then of her decision to drive a car while she was loaded? Surely Ms. Barton—more readily than most—could pay for a taxi or hire a designated driver.

“It comes down to a lack of responsibility, a lack of accountability,” he said, moving on to address the apparent D.U.I. upswing among Hollywood’s young and female coterie of stars. “What you’re seeing are examples of the “Me Generation”—it’s all about taking and never about giving back. So they’re what I refer to as ‘the narcissistic people.’ Narcissism is caused by low self-esteem,” Mr. Wanis said.

“Even though they act as if they’re confident, most of them act out of arrogance and vanity,” he continued, “Deep down they have huge insecurities and self-doubt; they can’t handle criticism or judgment; they tend to be all about themselves.”

Moments later, Mr. Wanis drew an interesting connection between Ms. Barton’s drunken episode and other, seemingly harmless habits enjoyed by countless Americans her age. MySpace and Facebook, he said, are prime examples of the psyche celebrated by the Me Generation. “It’s all about ‘Look at me, look at me, look at me!’ They’re taking and not giving,” he said. “And part of that sense of entitlement is also about power—meaning, ‘I can do whatever I want and get away with it.’”

We then mentioned today’s Times Styles article, which says that 2007 was the year when many major designers shouted: “Look at me!” Is this the beginning of some nightmare trend?

“It’s been building to this point,” he said without a moment’s pause. “It began with hip-hop music. The hip-hop culture is all about overcompensation.” He went on to tell The Daily Transom to merely consider what most hip-hop songs are about. The lyrics and attending images, he said, are about the kinds of cars the artists’ own, the size of the wheels on those cars, the number of women surrounding them and the amount of gold on their bodies.

“The person who screams out loud, ‘Look at me!’ is the person who doesn’t feel subconsciously confident in themselves,” he said, adding: “They’re trying to fill something up; it’s self perpetuating. Hip-hop started it. MySpace made it possible for everyone to do it. And fashion merely perpetuates it.”

Last week, celebrity life coach Patrick Wanis, PhD, wanted to tell our readers his list of the Top Ten Celebrity Meltdowns of 2007.

Today, on the phone with the Daily Transom, he got a little more daring.

First up: recent news that Lindsay Lohan has started to use the paparazzi to her own advantage, setting up and pocketing proceeds from snaps of her own mug.

“I say kudos to her!” he said. “I was thinking last week, Why don’t celebrities just use their brain?”

Mr. Wanis said that working with the roaming shutterbugs, as opposed to making them your enemy, simply makes good business sense.

“If you’re smart or mature enough to accept that it’s going to happen, then just use the system to your favor. There’s nothing wrong with that.

“I understand and empathize with both sides. I can understand when celebrities want privacy, but then don’t go shopping down Rodeo Drive,” he said. “How can you expect to have privacy then? That is so absurd. Don’t go into the haunts where all the celebrities hang out, because you’re not going to get privacy there.”

After further discussion, he pointed to Johnny Depp, an actor who famously avoids most pesky photogs by living outside of celebrity hot zones—Los Angeles, New York, Miami and London, among them—and by entering high-profile restaurants and hotels through their back entrances.

“[Mr. Depp] finds a way to avoid the attention because he doesn’t want it,” he said. “It’s interesting—in my mind, some of the most successful, seasoned celebrities and professionals are good at doing that. It seems to be the younger ones that really want the attention, or whose life is generally out of balance, or spinning out of control, that put themselves in those places.”

Yeah, alright, but what about the innocent children of celebrities like Julia Roberts, who recently flipped out and chased down a photographer taking pictures of her tots outside of their school?

“I think some celebrities think they can control things over which they have no control. Sure, you can tell the paparazzi not to take pictures of your son or daughter, but why would they listen to you? It’s their job to take pictures of stars and their families,” he said. “It comes down to: ‘How private do you want your life to be?’ We expect to see [famous faces] in New York, L.A. and South Beach. If they’re there, people will probably take pictures of them.”

He then brought up Will Smith, who often casts his own children in his films. (His daughter appears in I Am Legend and his son stars in The Pursuit of Happiness.) Then, Mr. Wanis said, taking pictures of the actor’s kids is fair game.

At this point in our discourse, the expert was willing to discuss all the recent rumors suggesting that Will Smith is a Scientologist. John Travolta, the musician Beck and Fox News’ Greta van Susteren, he said, are somehow able to be Scientologists and not have everybody getting worked up about it. Will Smith, he thinks, will be more like them than like Mr. Cruise.

“Will Smith will get away with it," he said. "The difference between Will Smith and Tom Cruise isn’t in their star power. It’s how they approach their beliefs. Tom Cruise made two mistakes. First, he jumped up and down on Oprah’s couch, so he made a caricature of himself. The second mistake was when he started talking about psychiatry and medication. It wasn’t what he said that was a problem, it was the way he said it.”

“When you come out as an extremist and make things black-and-white, it’s easy for the media to attack you. Plus, he was attacking multi-billion-dollar corporations… He might be a great actor, but that doesn’t make him a great communicator and spokesperson.”

"When most people make negative judgements about other religions, they usually don’t even know what their tenets are—the beliefs of those religions. I mean, look at the comments of [Republican Mike] Huckabee”—Mr. Huckabee reportedly asked a reporter, rhetorically, if Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers—“He was expressing his own ignorance, even though he ended up trying to qualify his remarks and back off. Even so-called intelligent, educated people can come out with really ignorant remarks that show they don’t know anything.”

We were starting to be confused. So, is Scientology necessarily a P.R. problem for a celebrity? Possibly one? Or never one?

Mr. Wanis asked us to question whether the popular distaste for Scientology stems from its innate difference from the “normal religions,” or from a principled rejection of its teachings. Mr. Wanis told us that he is not himself, in any way, shape or form, a Scientologist.

But:

“Don’t just do what everyone else is doing,” he said. “Stop and question your own values; question your own beliefs; do your own research; and then make your decision.”

We were starting to get the feeling that something was missing from The Daily Transom. And then it hit us, hard—like Britney Spears’ umbrella on K-Fed’s car. It’s been over two weeks since we last checked in with our celebrity life coach, Patrick Wanis, PhD. This time, we talked about what he called “the curse of the reality show.”

Mr. Wanis said it’s as simple as looking at all the celebrity couples whose relationships hit the skids during or shortly after wrapping their series: Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey (Newlyweds); Carmen Electra and Dave Navarro (‘Til Death Do Us Part); Britney Spears and Kevin Federline (Chaotic); Travis Barker and Shanna Moakler (Meet the Barkers); Danny Bonaduce and Gretchen Bonaduce (Breaking Bonaduce); and Kathy Griffin and Matt Moline (My Life on the D-List). “And let’s not forget—although we might want to—Liza Minnelli and David Gest,” said Mr. Wanis. The cringe-worthy pair couldn’t even finish taping the first season of their VH1 show before divorcing.

Totally a pattern, right? There's more...

For the sake of keeping things newsy, though, we decided to stick with the latest—and perhaps most tragic—victims of this spooky curse: Hulk Hogan and Linda Bollea, whose VH1 reality series was called Hogan Knows Best. (For those who don’t know, Ms. Bollea filed for divorce from the former pro wrestler earlier this week. Read the details by clicking here.)

“They did have a lot of differences,” Mr. Wanis said. “If you watch the show, they’re arguing about how [daughter] Brooke should dress; they’re arguing about what [son] Nick should do with his life—typical things that any parents would argue.”

What’s not typical at all, according to Mr. Wanis, is the whole premise of the show. Starting with and stemming from, of course, its title: Hogan Knows Best. “Maybe Father Knows Best was successful in the nineteen-fifties. But today, you can’t have a guy who says, ‘I’m the one who knows best.’ That was the whole pitch of the show! ‘Yeah, but today, women don’t want that!’ Women do not want to be controlled by men”—except, he allowed, for women in certain kinds of households—“Today’s twenty-first century woman wants independence; she wants her own voice; she wants her own identity; she wants to be heard; she still wants to be a mother and a housewife, but she still wants her own life and identity separate from the family.”

There have also been rumors circulating that the divorce is a ruse (which were largely started by the lawyer who represents 22-year-old John J. Graziano, the boy put into a comatose state when the Bolleas’ son, Nick, crashed the car he was riding in.) Mr. Wanis doesn’t buy it. “I personally don’t think Hogan would ever [fake a divorce.] I don’t think that’s his nature; I think he’s got a great heart; I think he’s sincere in what he does. His intentions are always sincere. Plus, if he was ever to do anything like that, it would destroy his entire reputation around the world,” he told us.

“I just think Linda’s going through a midlife crisis.”

In a document Mr. Wanis released exclusively to The Daily Transom, he details the reasons why, in his view, reality TV is relationship poison:

It’s been a week since we last spoke with celebrity life coach Patrick Wanis, Ph.D., so we called him earlier today to ask him some of the more pressing questions celebrities are posing right now.

We started things off with Writers Guild Enemy No. 1, talk show host Ellen DeGeneres (who is also a W.G.A. member). She canceled plans to tape her show in New York next week after earning her union's disapproval for crossing the picket. Michael Winship, president of the W.G.A.’s East Coast branch, responded to the news by saying he was “delighted” Ms. DeGeneres would no longer be hitting Manhattan, where she was sure to face a fresh crop of protesters.

“Ellen’s approach has always been to not just buck the trends, but to do what she feels is right and do what she believes is right,” Mr. Wanis said. “What she doesn’t realize, because she’s not getting the right advice, is that her whole aura and image of being a fun, happy-go-lucky person goes out the door. If you’re a happy-go-lucky person, don’t go against the Guild that you’re a member of!”

Instead, he said, Ms. DeGeneres should either terminate her W.G.A. membership and continue taping, or prove her solidarity with the striking members and refuse to write until a resolution’s been made.

Mr. Wanis also touched on the apparent correlation between Ms. DeGeneres’ strike-breaking and the whole Iggy fiasco. “Here she is fighting to make sure that the dog ends up in a loving home—the teenagers of the hairdresser or whoever they were—and she didn’t scream immediately at the people who were making death threats at the dog agency [Mutts and Moms]. Sanctity of life goes for both canines and humans. And I’m all for animal rights; I don’t wear furry or any of that stuff,” he said.

“She’s living like she’s on an island where she forgets that there are consequences for her actions beyond just her own,” Mr. Wanis said. “So what she’s doing is being very sensitive to her own needs and insensitive to others’.”

He also had some interesting things to say about yesterday’s news that Lance Armstrong’s six-year-old daughter brought Ashley Olsen to show-and-tell at her Texas school. (The idea was hardly novel to Mr. Armstrong, who reportedly went to ex-girlfriend Tory Burch’s daughter’s Upper East Side school as part of her show-and-tell.)

“They say that most girls bring a doll to show-and-tell—something that’s close to them, something they play with—but to bring your dad’s girlfriend, whose been in such a short-term relationship? So you ask yourself the motivation,” he said. “It’s about showing off and boasting. In that situation, I think it should be Lance Armstrong speaking to his daughters. To help them establish some priorities. Show-and-tell! What, are you bringing her in like a Barbie Doll?” He wondered aloud what Ms. Olsen could possibly have offered the young Armstrong girl’s classmates. Mr. Wanis said that it’s highly unlikely that the cyclist’s daughter sees in Ms. Olsen whatever it is that Mr. Armstrong seems to adore.

“If Ashley and Lance were to continue in a relationship, and it were to become serious and they end up in a live-in relationship, how is Ashley going to be able to discipline and guide this girl? If Ashley says, ‘You’re grounded,’ what is that little girl going to turn around and say to her one day? Ashley’s not going to be in much of a position to be a mother, a nurturer or a guide to Lance’s daughter,” he said.

Not really sure of what to make of the Lance Armstrong-Ashley Olsen pairing posited in the column today—a true Edgar Bergen-and-Charlie McCarthy match-up—we called celebrity life coach Patrick Wanis to weigh in on the matter.

“There’s something weird there. It just doesn’t feel right,” he said. That was before he asked for each of their astrological signs. Upon finding out, Mr. Wanis made a loud noise. “Oh, that’s never going to work! She’s a Gemini I’m laughing and I guess I shouldn’t be. Virgos [like Mr. Armstrong] are very down to earth, but often super critical. They want to be very well organized. Now, on the other hand, Ashley is a Gemini; she’s free spirited. She’s into intellectual stimulation. She’ll get bored very easily, too. Geminis love to do new things all the time, and they tend not to finish what they start, because they see something else that’s more exciting. I’m very curious to know what the spark is, because I don’t feel a spark between them. When I saw this, I was like, ‘This doesn’t even fit.’ Other than that they’re both powerful and rich, I cannot see what else there is there.”

Their age difference of some 15 years doesn’t really faze Mr. Wanis, who pointed to the successful marriages maintained by stars like Michael Douglas, 63, and Catherine Zeta-Jones, 38. Instead, Mr. Wanis pointed to Ms. Olsen’s childhood as a possible hindrance on the path to true love with the champion cyclist. “Usually girls who go with older guys have problems with their father figures.” (The Olsen twins were raised mainly by their mother after their parents divorced in 1995.) “And Lance, in that sense, would fit. He’s an older guy, he’s already had the success; he’s already got the wealth; he’s well established; he’s conquered things. You know, he’s conquered his own challenges, and she’ll respect him for that.”

Later, he brought up Mr. Armstrong’s book, It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life, which, in his professional view, “is all about winning. And he’s ready to give up everything, including his wife. I mean, look at his track record!” he said emphatically, before adding: “Maybe he’s good on the bicycle, but he’s not good on the marriage…It’s strange because he’s a sports guy, so he’s got to be able to stay, but he’s not a stayer. Isn’t that funny! That’s the ultimate irony, because usually I believe that the way you do anything is the way you do everything.”

If they asked for his advice, Mr. Wanis said that he’d probably tell them to find something they have in common that’s “much more powerful than just their celebrity status and the infatuation. Because I get the sense it’s an infatuation. I don’t think Lance is in love with her; I think he’s infatuated with it. She’s a young, pretty starlet. She’s sweet and she’s innocent; she hasn’t even grown up. Ashley is growing up, but she’s still a little girl. She’s never had a real solid upbringing, she spent most of her time on TV.”