Self Help Books--What Do You Think Of Them?

I personally don’t care much for self-help books (and by self-help I mean books aimed at people with emotional or relationship problems, not “How to Fix the Toilet When You Can’t Find a Plumber” type books.) I find most of them sappy and rarely read them but I am curious as to what other people think of them. Have any dopers followed advice given in a self-help book? If so, did it work or did it cause more problems? Any really good books out there, and any to avoid like the plague?

(Maybe I should have put this in Cafe Society, but I put it in IMHO because I view it as a poll.)

I laughed at my mom’s self help books for a long time but I’ve started to realize that sometimes they can be legitimate. I think the main reason they get a bad rap is that so many people buy them and/or read them as a self-help act in and of itself. It makes them feel like they’re doing something to improve their situation even if they never act on the advice or even read the whole book. I’ve found that most good self help involves a lot of work.

The self help books that I’ve used are The Dance of Intimacy by Harriet Lerner, Goals by Zig Ziglar, How to Relax by Eugene Walker and Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie. Al Franken’s You’re Good Enough, You’re Smart Enough is only funny if you’ve read Melody Beattie.

I know a lot of people like Anthony Robbins. He’s not my style but I think he does a decent job of synthesizing ideas so that people can apply them to their lives. The problem is that he focuses way more on motivation to change than he does on changing. He markets his stuff towards people who can’t get their asses off the couch but feel like they should. I think Dr. Phil is the same thing. They both appeal to people who probably don’t have any interest in self actualization and just want to muster up more ambition for basic goals like health, a relationship, a fulfilling job. Which is fine but I think those are very basic life skills and I don’t relate to it. Anthony Robbins in particular is always on TV talking about having castles and helicopters and really white teeth and I think the people who buy his stuff are the same people who buy lottery tickets. I think his books are like exercise equipment people buy and don’t use. Same goes for Dr. Phil. If you know your life is unmanaged and it’s because of underlying issues you aren’t doing anything about is buying a book going to turn everything around? That would be a fluke.

There’s also a lot of self-help that focuses on strange inbred philosophies. They usually have the words “Power of” in the title. “The Power of Now” “The Healing Power of Music” “The Mind’s Power to Manifest” “The Power of Alpha Thinking” etc. I don’t have a clue what any of those people are talking about and I don’t want to know. I guess it’s the New Age slant on self help. I’ve noticed that people who read these books can NEVER succinctly explain these ideas to me and they always tell me, “You just have to read the book.” I think these types of books give people a feeling of peace but I think being pre-occupied with any topic would give them the same feeling. People who think about baseball all the time feel peaceful when they think about baseball. It’s the same idea.

I once read “Risking” and liked it. Probably because it supported my personal philosophy. I also read a book that I think was called “Love Addiction.” It helped me understand why I was having certain feelings for someone that I left.

I think they’re like any genre, there’s a bunch of crap and a few good titles. I’d suggest Martin Seligmann to anyone.

My therapist has me going through David Burns’ books right now. He advocates cognitive behavioral therapy, the idea that a person must distort their own thoughts to feel unnecessarily bad and that identifying the distortions can improve how a person feels.

I think his stuff would be super if that were my problem, something I’m unsure of. That said, I’m going to continue the workbooks because I feel really damn good afterwards.

CBT is the theory in personal-type psychology right now. I find it fascinating.

My take on “self help” books: If you need the book (and, by extension, its author) to help you, then it’s not self help, now is it?

‘Self-help’ and ‘self-improvment’ is essentially just another publishing fad. These books get published not because they actually help anyone do anything, but because there’s a market for them and money to be made. Without a trace of cynicism, it is reasonably safe to suggest that 90% of these books are really only intended to achieve one improvement - a major improvement to the author’s bank balance.

Ask yourself this: how many times in your life did you know someone who had some sort of major personal ‘self help’ issue to deal with, and they dealt with it successfully, and they told you that it was all down to a book they read? I’ll bet the answer is either ‘not often’ or ‘never’.

There are exceptions, but it’s very much a case of caveat emptor. It’s very nice to think that buying a book will make a big difference, but 9 out of 10 people who buy a ‘self help’ book never read it; of those that read it, 9 out of 10 will never actually implement whatever half-baked theories it suggests; and of those who do, 9 out of 10 will not actually achieve any significant change.

In many cases, you can readily see that the content falls into two categories: stuff that’s common sense and stuff that isn’t. The common sense stuff works, sure enough, but then again… it is just common sense. The stuff that isn’t might work or might not, and there’s usually zilch by way of proof one way or the other. For all you know, it’s just wishful thinking by the author, or half-baked sky pie that tells you what you want to believe in return for your dollars.

If anyone wants to make some easy money, the ‘tell them what they want to hear’ recipe is the way to go. If you sit down and write a book called “Losing weight is going to involve some keen effort down the gym for at least 12 weeks and a radical re-think of what you actually shovel into your face” then the chances are it won’t sell very many copies. On the other hand, “Your EEZY-WAY 10 day Miracle Slimming Plan!” (subtitle: ‘No exercise and stuff yourself with chocolate yet STILL lose weight!’) will probably shift by the truck load. Armed with this information, go and look over the titles in the ‘self help’ section at the book store. If the book seems to promise that someting that ought to be difficult is actually as easy as whistling Dixie, then it’s probably a waste of time and trees.

Also, try taking a good look at the photos of the author. If Dr. Phil knows so damn much, how come he’s visibly fat, overweight and paunchy? If he’s got such a gung-ho, positive, you-can-do-it attitude, how come he can’t shift his lardy ass down to the gym three times a week and get in shape?

As I said, there are exceptions. If it’s written by Kathleen Hawkins, it’s good stuff every page of the way.

From my own experience, I would read self-help books to try and help me deal with my depression (this was several years ago, by the way, so the genre may have improved.) What I found was that the books helped me diagnose and zero in on the causes for my depression, but nothing but therapy (many years after reading all the books) helped me resolve anything. Everyone’s neuroses is tailor made and the resolution has to be, too. But that’s just what I’ve experienced.