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None of this bothers the thousands who attend Bradshaw's workshops. They are there, hankies in hand, for an orchestrated, emotion-laden family reunion with their inner selves. The dramatic set piece is an exercise that Bradshaw has recently started to call a collective grief ritual. "Now if any of you have a stuffed animal, you may want to hold it," he advises listeners just before the lights in the auditorium dim and a schmaltzy recording of Sibelius' Going Home begins its familiar strains. Many of his followers -- casually dressed, of all ages -- clutch teddy bears or plush puppies as Bradshaw's hypnotic voice rises above the music, instructing them to close their eyes and return to their childhood family home. "Go back there now," he intones, "and see yourself as the little child you once were." Take the child in your arms, he advises, and start walking away, looking back and saying goodbye to parents or siblings. "Tell the child, I'm going to take care of you. I'm going to be your champion." A wall of sound -- of sobbing and weeping -- usually rises in the auditorium.
An admitted ham, Bradshaw has a high-octane style that is too big for the TV screen. On stage he is commanding and works a room like a pro. Cordless mike in hand, he is a stand-up psychologist, slinging one-liners or deepening his voice to repeat self-pitying monologues from his drinking days: "There's nothing wrong with me. I'm a philosopher. I see the woundedness of life."
Bradshaw is a family tell-all in the public arena -- you're only as sick as your secrets is the rule -- but is reticent in private. Sipping a diet soda in a hotel room a few hours after the arduous Manhattan workshop, he acknowledges that his omnipresent smile sometimes hides more desperate feelings. His father's death at 62 haunts him ("That's just four years from now in my own life"), and he has lingering regrets about himself as a young father. He was married in 1969; he and ex-wife Nancy had a son and he helped raise her two children by another marriage. But during those years, Bradshaw says, he was a "rage-aholic," screaming and pounding the table over trivial matters and trying to make it up afterward. He and Nancy remain friends -- she runs his tape-cassette business -- but their marriage was troubled from the start. "My nonphysical incest put a distance about sexuality in my life," he believes. "You just lose desire." He now lives alone.
Being a father figure for millions is a lonely business. Last year all but six of Bradshaw's weekends were spent on the road. He plays golf with Houston cronies when he can and tries to schedule some seminars in Las Vegas and Reno so he can play the slot machines: he craves the excitement, not the winnings. For nine years he has been involved with a small men's support group in Houston, where he can unburden himself for his own sake, not that of others. "I need a place where I can be real," he says, but adds, "Not that I'm not real. I try to be."