I’ve got some really bad news for you. You know what to expect from this column. You can tolerate a lot of negativity. But this just might push you over the edge. Brace yourself.

Dr. Phil McGraw isn’t all he’s cracked up to be.

Catholics, you can breathe a sigh of relief because the pope is off the hook. But if you believed in the infallibility of Dr. Phil like I did, it’s a crushing blow.

True, his isn’t the first self-made empire to hit a snag. Rush Limbaugh, that shining example of initiative and self-improvement, drugged himself into a stupor of pain pill addiction. Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the genius who brought us “The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands,” couldn’t make a go of it with her first. And then of course there’s Martha Stewart, whose saintly on-air exterior cracked to reveal a foul-mouthed, money-grubbing capitalist.

But Dr. Phil? “Please, not him!” you scream. “He was blessed by Oprah.” I want you to know that I feel the same way. I too watched in awe as he expertly pinpointed the cause of marital problems, parenting woes and identity issues on the weekly “Dr. Phil” edition of Oprah’s show and later on his own program.

So when I read in The Californian that the millions who watch his weekly “Dr. Phil” TV show are receiving entertainment and not actual therapy, it was like a punch in the stomach. Yes, reader, the brilliant analyst who enters your home every weekday to put your life in order with folksy sound bites is, well, putting on a show.

This is a national disaster. Millions of us who were devoted to the Ten Laws of Life, the Seven Keys to Weight Loss and the Seven Strategies for Reconnecting with Your Partner have received the therapeutic equivalent of a kick in the crotch.

What am I going to do with all the relationships, career paths and life strategies I created based on what was supposed to be scientific advice? They will all have to be recalibrated. No more basking in the glow of predictable consequences and immediate results. No more rejoicing in the clarity of the Ten Laws.

And that’s not the worst of it. Like Ross Perot’s running mate, I don’t know who I am or why I am here. I can no longer be sure that the Authentic Self described by Dr. Phil in his book “Self Matters” is the real Authentic Self. Once again, I’m a pre-Phil idiot, unable to perceive even the simplest rules for guaranteed happiness that he handed down like Moses from Mount Sinai.

In my pre-Dr. Phil days, I was lost in a rabbit’s warren of human mysteries. Dr. Phil gave me exact directions out of the maze. I felt validated. My problems were the same as the people on his show, and the solutions were easy to follow! As long as I was going about it the way Dr. Phil said, it was going to be all right.

It’s not all right anymore. In fact, it’s all screwed up. I’m adrift in the universe, and it really sucks. Without Dr. Phil’s guidance, millions of us are in misery. But all is not lost. I believe another therapeutic messiah will emerge. He will come in the form of a groundbreaking new book prominently displayed in the Barnes & Noble self-improvement section, and this book will finally help me break through into an authentic, life-affirming existence. I can’t wait.