Phil Stark wrote Dude, Where's My Car? Then he left Hollywood to become a therapist.
Now he spends his days helping screenwriters figure out why they can't finish their scripts, why positive feedback feels hollow, and whether they're actually happy doing this work.
In addition to the Aston Kutcher starrer, he also worked in the writers’ room on That '70s Show and contributed to South Park.
In 2019, Stark enrolled in grad school to become a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and now he works with creative professionals navigating the challenges of the entertainment industry. His perspective on both sides makes him uniquely qualified to help creatives.
His works include Dude, Where's My Car-tharsis?, a book about talk therapy.
His latest project is How to Be a Screenwriter, which is now available. The book draws on both his experiences as a working screenwriter and his current practice. It covers topics like developing ideas, taking notes, and breaking into the industry, alongside mental health issues like dealing with your inner critic, tackling writer's block, and avoiding burnout.
We spoke with Stark to learn about the importance of mental health for creative folks. He told us about taking on imposter syndrome, the importance of boundaries, and why writers need to be honest with themselves.
Editor’s note: The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Final Draft: What made you realize that writers need mental health resources?
Phil Stark: I was a screenwriter for many years, and a producer, and then I switched careers and became a therapist. And so my work as a therapist is not just with screenwriters, it's with people of all careers and all jobs and all kinds of situations.
But I'm at heart a screenwriter, and I'm particularly attuned, I think, to the struggles that creative people and particularly writers experience. I feel like that's the Venn diagram, these things all really concentrate in one area for me. And particularly issues that are specific or typical in writers like imposter syndrome or strong inner critic burnout, writer’s block, that sort of thing.
Final Draft: Did you struggle with any of that yourself as a writer?
Phil Stark: Oh yeah, I still do. Absolutely. Oh my God.
I'm writing this book right now, How to Be a Screenwriter, and one of the chapters is how to deal with the inner critic. And as I was writing it, I was thinking, “Oh, this is bad. This is not going to be good."
So I wrote about that, and it's really a window into the fact that a lot of writers have that kind of inner monologue, but that it's not something that just goes away. It's something that you understand and you hear and then you say, “Okay, enough of that, I'm going to get back to the work.”
Final Draft: I feel like that is one thing I'm definitely dealing with right now. I had a table read, and I walked away from it feeling good, but also feeling that it was not up to the standard that I have for my writing.
Phil Stark: But how did the people around you react to it?
Final Draft: Positively. I got good feedback, but I just could feel myself noting all the errors.
Phil Stark: Well, it's an interesting kind of situation, because it's that kind of feeling that motivates you to make it better, which is great. But when you’re caught in a cycle of essentially not being able to take a compliment, it’s an example of the idea of never being able to really be your own cheerleader or accept that something can be good.
That's when I think it can, I would say, become a problem, become something that maybe you want to change.
Final Draft: Can you talk a little bit more about impostor syndrome?
Phil Stark: When I say imposter syndrome, what I mean is the idea that we might feel like a fraud, that our work really isn't good, that certainly other people are going to think badly of what we're doing and we're not good enough.
And that's often something that is a result of early in life experiences. It's the parent or the caregiver who—an example in the book is the kid who spills milk at the dinner table, and there's the parent who says, “Oh man, you made a mess. It's okay. We're going to clean it up. Let's try not to do that again.”
It's the parent who, they might be angry, but the kid understands that they just did something bad, but they have the power to not do that.
Versus the parent who might instill a sense of shame or guilt on the kid and say, “What are you thinking? How stupid are you? You spilled your milk? Well, you're not getting any more milk!” And that makes the kid not feel like that they did something bad, but that they are something bad.
And that's shame, and experiences like that can be internalized so that you always have this voice of the inner critic, which is essentially the voice of, in this case, a parent telling them that they're not good enough or they're that bad and that they did something wrong, and this is something we can carry with us.
When I'm working with clients on this, you can very clearly see they're talking about the work in a positive way, and then they'll say, “But it's probably not going to be any good.”
And you can really see that delineation. So the metaphor I use in the book is that we don't want to let that inner critic drive the car of our lives. We don't want the inner critic to dictate where we're going. The inner critic’s going to be in the car still, but let's put it in the passenger seat so we can drive the car and we can decide where we want to go. The inner critic can still chirp away with these negative thoughts, but we're not going to let it affect our career and our lives.
Final Draft: Do you have clients that get to that state of almost paralysis where they can't move forward?
Phil Stark: It's interesting because a lot of my work as a therapist is just reflecting back what a client says … An example from the book, and from my work is with screenwriters especially, they all will often say something like, “Oh, I have this idea for the script and it just makes me laugh. And I think it's funny and I keep thinking about it, but it probably wouldn't sell. So it's stupid.”
And I always know that that's exactly what they should be writing.
So we can very clearly see that the inner critic is preventing them from doing something, and that's the successful inner critic. The inner critic's goal is to not let you succeed. And the irony is that so many writers who work in these creative professions have that inner critic, and it's really something to work on overcoming, because if we can't be our own cheerleader—if we can't think our work is good, if we can't pitch ourselves with positivity, enthusiasm—then we can't really expect anybody else to.
Final Draft: Another thing that writers deal with a lot is feedback, and sometimes it's hard to hear. Do you have any tactics for receiving feedback?
Phil Stark: Yes. I have a whole chapter in my book, it's called “How to Take Notes." And this is something I see in younger screenwriters, or maybe [those] who are less experienced, which is this feeling of defensiveness.
When you get a note, you want to explain the note, you want to explain to the person why that note doesn't make sense, or you want to explain why they should have understood something.
And the point is that they're not changing the script. They're trying to change the reader, which is the opposite of what we want to do when we get notes. We don't want to be defensive.
In fact, when you start working with producers and directors and executives, you want to be collaborative. You want to overcome those feelings of defensiveness and vulnerability and work with people in a way that makes them want to work with you. I mean, it’s the last thing executives and producers want to see in a writer. They don't want to give notes to a writer and have the writer look like they want to throw up or they're having a migraine, and they don't want to be told why their notes are not good.
They want to work with writers. They're collaborative. So overcoming that feeling of defensiveness and vulnerability while taking notes is a huge thing, not just for your writing but your career.
Final Draft: Another thing that is common in therapy settings is boundaries. Do you find yourself discussing boundaries with screenwriting clients?
Phil Stark: “Boundaries” is a big word. A lot of things in therapy that come up are big words. Whenever I hear big words in a session with a client, I always want to define it, and the definitions might change.
The definition is usually in terms of their subjective—what this person thinks this word means. So “boundaries” is simply saying how you feel and what you want in a very clear way.
I mean, we certainly don't want to roll over and act one way but feel another. We also don't want to be passive aggressive and express our displeasure in a roundabout subtle way. We want to say something like, “I don't think that note works, but I'll take a look at it.”
We want to say, “I understand what you're saying, but I feel really strongly about this and I really like this scene.”
We want to be able to say honestly how we feel. And sometimes what prevents us from doing that is the fear that the other person is going to get angry or we're going to hurt somebody's feelings. But the irony is that it's often bigger in our own mind than it actually is when we actually say those things.
I think that people we might work with as screenwriters appreciate that, that people are honest and can talk about things without getting emotional or angry. So I think that's an important tool in the screenwriter's emotional or psychological arsenal too.
Final Draft: Within the industry, there's a lot of this sort of “grind” mindset, where you’re plugging away all the time. You're always on.
Phil Stark: That's interesting, the “grind,” as you're putting it, and I think as most people think about, it has a negative connotation.
It's admirable to grind, meaning to constantly be writing and churning out stuff. And if that works for people, that's great. If it becomes a problem, if you start to feel burned out, if you start encountering writer's block, then that is a problem.
The irony is that I think a lot of people try to fight through that as if you're a marathon runner finishing a race or an athletic competition. I mean, the goal is to overcome and persevere and fight through it. But I find creatively with writer's block the best way to fight through. It's to not fight it.
I encourage clients who are feeling that way to take time off. We'll talk about what they enjoy doing that's not writing, or the routines that they had if they were not writing.
And I encourage them to do that. If they wake up every morning, it's 6:30, and sit down at the computer and write, no matter how they feel, if they end up feeling burned out or ground out, then I encourage them. Wake up at seven and go for a walk at the time, breakfast and do everything besides writing.
And if you can get into that mindset where you're not thinking about the writing, you're doing something else, then you have those wonderful moments that we as writers love, which is when you're in the shower thinking about a scene and all of a sudden it pops up, or you're taking out the trash and you're imagining a scene, and all of a sudden you realize, “I’ve got to get back to my desk.” And then the writing flows again.
Final Draft: Is there a single most important thing that you feel writers should know about their mental health and being mentally well as a writer and a creative person?
Phil Stark: I think the biggest thing is an awareness of our mental health.
I think it's easy to get caught in a cycle where we have a goal and we work towards that goal, and that goal is the most important thing, and we put it in front of how we feel and our emotions and our thoughts and how we go through life.
In fact, in my book, the last chapter is called a “How to Know When to Stop,” which was a chapter I didn't anticipate writing. And it applies both to people starting out who are trying to break in and are not having success. And it also applies to people like me who had a lot of success, but then had to break in all over again. And the way that I pitch assessing your life, your career and what you're doing is just a simple question.
Are you happy?
If you're happy doing anything, then that's fine. And as a therapist, I'd encourage you to do it.
But it takes a lot of awareness and bravery to actually consider, “Well, am I happy doing this?” Because if you're not, that might mean that things might have to change, and if you don't know what to change or what the change would be too, then that can be terrifying, so you don't want to address it.
So, I think the emotional awareness of writers is the ability to be honest with themselves and assess how they feel, why they feel, and what would happen if they decided to feel differently.
Final Draft: Therapy can be cost prohibitive for some. Are there things that writers can do if they can't afford therapy right now?
Phil Stark: Well, they could buy my first book, Dude, Where’s My Car-tharsis, or my second book, How to Win at Couples Therapy, which are both books about therapy, not writing in general, but about mental health. And each chapter is really about a metaphor that comes up in my therapy practice. So if you can't afford therapy, at least you can read about therapy.
I remember before I could afford therapy, I would just go to Barnes & Noble and read self-help books, standing at the counter, because what I really value is hearing other people's experiences and how they overcame them and somebody else's understanding of issues that I'm going through at the time.
Final Draft: Are there any other things that you want to highlight in terms of what writers should keep in mind for their mental health?
Phil Stark: It is sort of basic, but honestly, diet and exercise is huge. How you treat yourself physically reflects a lot of how you treat yourself emotionally and mentally.
So one thing I always check with clients is what are you eating? Are you sleeping? Are you exercising? Are you getting some sun? Are you seeing family and friends? Are you enjoying yourself?
I mean, it's easy to take the frustration we might find in our writing career or a particular scene or pitch or a script and carry that with us through our whole lives, day to day. But something as simple as getting good sleep, eating healthy food, exercising, and being around people we love and fulfilling relationships, it's remarkable how much that can help.
Final Draft: I'm really glad you pointed that out. Do you have anything else to add?
Phil Stark: I have this book coming out, it's called How to Be a Screenwriter. It's not about how to write a script in the way that Story or Save the Cat or books like that [teach]. It's not about how to structure a screenplay or how to write a scene or how to write great dialogue, but it's about everything else that a screenwriter needs to be able to do to have a successful career.
I share my own personal approach to how to develop an idea into an outline, how to approach a first draft, how to take notes, how to tackle a rewrite.
But then there are also chapters like how to break in, how to network, how to get an agent, how to take a meeting, and then there are mental health ones, like how to deal with the inner critic and how to tackle writer's block and how to avoid burnout.
And it's really interesting writing a book that's not specifically about mental health, but about the kind of things that screenwriters go through both practically and emotionally. It's got a lot of anecdotes from my own personal career, which I really had a lot of fun writing, and I'm excited to write a book that draws on my own experience that I think specifically would really be valuable to screenwriters at earlier parts of their careers.