Self help

[[File:Samuel Smiles by Sir George Reid.jpg|thumb|right|165px|Samuel Smiles]]
{{Psychology}}
{{cquote|If you’re reading it in a book, folks, it ain’t self-help. It’s help.|||[[George Carlin]]}}
{{hatnote|Not to be confused with {{wpl|self-help (law)|legal self-help|,}} which really is helping yourself.}}

'''Self help''' is the umbrella term given to a fairly large genre of self-guided instructional materials, particularly those centering around improving one's personal [[life]]. Self-help books, courses, and groups cover a vast amount of territory, including [[psychology]], motivation, [[sex education]], [[fad diet]]s, law, and family issues. Ideas often flow between the self-help movement and other enthusiastic groups of people who like to confidently tell strangers how to live, such as the [[pick-up artist]] community, moralizing [[religion]]s, or some practitioners of [[martial arts]].<ref>For example, see Steve Barnes' blog [http://darkush.blogspot.com/ Dar Kush]</ref> Most self-help doctrine is only [[peer-review]]ed in the sense that sometimes [[author]]s talk to each other while using the urinals or stalls in the publisher's water closet.{{efn|This would better be called "pee-review" &mdash; get it?}} Many self-help "systems" derive in fact from very dubious principles drawn more from pop [[spiritualism]] than from [[science]]. It has been suggested that the name is misleading because, as George Carlin put it, "If you're looking for self-help, why would you read a book written by somebody else?"

Although the self-help movement has parallels in ancient philosophy and religious practice,{{efn|One might confuse [[Benjamin Franklin]]'s 18<sup>th</sup>-century adages and homespun advice with self-help, but [[Poe's law]] may apply.}} the modern form was born in the 19<sup>th</sup> and early-20<sup>th</sup> centuries with books like Samuel Smiles' {{wpl|Self-Help (book)|''Self-Help'' (1865)}} and Dale Carnegie's {{wpl|How to Win Friends and Influence People|''How To Win Friends and Influence People'' (1936)|.}} Today, self help is especially popular in the [[United States]],{{cn}} due to that country's inculcation of {{wpl|individualism}} and [[Just world fallacy|emphasis that virtue is rewarded]]. If one's [[society]] or [[culture]] is very unequal, and one's place in it largely depends on accidents (like who one's parents are, particularly in terms of [[social class|class]] and [[ethnicity|race]]), then that would be [[Argument from adverse consequences|too horrible to contemplate]], so it must be wrong!

Self-help books have, through time and by design, consistently stood against social change by blaming the [[person|individual]] (rather than (for example) institutionalized [[racism]] or [[sexism]]) for not having enough [[will]] to advance in society.<ref name=petrzela>[https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/self-help-gurus-like-tony-robbins-have-often-stood-in-the-way-of-social-change/2018/04/13/15340974-3e70-11e8-8d53-eba0ed2371cc_story.html Self-help gurus like Tony Robbins have often stood in the way of social change] by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela & Christine B. Whelan (April 13, 2018 at 9:15 AM) ''The Washington Post''.</ref> This was exemplified in 2018 by Tony Robbins' [[Blaming the victim|public shaming of a sexual-abuse survivor]] and of the [[MeToo|#MeToo movement]] in general.<ref name=petrzela/>

Instructional materials for other subjects — particularly the sort that might also be taught in school — might reasonably be considered "self-help" as well, though the term is not always used in those cases.

Any self-help system or theory will work just as well as any other — for a time. (The [[placebo effect]] may play a role here.) But given the nature of [[human nature]], somehow each system needs continual [[Communal reinforcement|reinforcement]] ("Buy the next book!" — "Come to our next [[church]] service!" — "Take the next course!") — or else the "seeker" moves on to the next self-help fad. Either outcome further fuels the vast and burgeoning self-help industry and its market.

All self-help systems peddle two different notions:

# People have the potential to be, have, or do anything they want.
# People should always be living at their full potential.

In other words, you are always supposed to be a [[Egotheism|god]], and if you're not, you suck.

==Some famous self-help books==
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:left; font-size:90%; margin:0 0 0 0; border-left:none" cellspacing="0"
|-style="font-size:110%;"
!Title
!Author(s)
!Published
!class="unsortable"|Comments
|-
|''Freedom: Credos from the Road''
|Barger, Ralph "Sonny"
|2005
|How you can achieve and excel by applying the immense wisdom of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club to your life.
|-
|''The Courage to Heal'' 
|Bass, Ellen, and Laura Davis
|1988
|About child abuse and [[recovered memory therapy|recovered memory]]; highly controversial and mostly rejected by the scientific community.
|-
|''Games People Play''
|Berne, Eric
|1964 
|Book which popularized [[Transactional Analysis]], an influential concept in 1950s and 1960s psychology which has since fallen out of vogue but remains influential within the self-help market.
|-
|''Honoring the Self''
|Branden, Nathaniel
|1983
| Branden turned to writing self-esteem books after his acrimonious split with [[Ayn Rand]] and the [[Objectivist|Objectivism]] movement
|-
|''How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World''
|Browne, Harry
|1973
|Self-help through [[anarcho-capitalism]] for societal dropouts.  Browne later twice ran for president on the [[Libertarian Party]] ticket.
|-
|''Chicken Soup for the Soul''
|Canfield, Jack, ''et al''
|1993
|Plus a large series of books which followed. Generally filled with glurge<ref>See [[TV Tropes]] or [[Snopes]]. [http://www.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Glurge] [https://web.archive.org/web/20211031124500/https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/category/glurge-gallery/]</ref> rather than [[pseudoscience]].
|-
|''Don't Sweat the Small Stuff (And It's All Small Stuff)''
|Carlson, Richard
|1997
|Plus a large series of books which followed.
|-
|''How to Win Friends and Influence People''
|Carnegie, Dale
|1936
|It was targeted at people with social difficulties and anxieties.{{efn|Wikipedia: ''How to Win Friends and Influence People'' is one of the first bestselling self-help books ever published. Written by Dale Carnegie and first published in 1936, it has sold 15 million copies globally. It was a ''[[New York Times]]'' best seller for 10 years.}} [[Charles Manson]] used the book to recruit his merry band of murderers.<ref>[http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2013-07-22/charles-mansons-turning-point-dale-carnegie-classes Charles Manson's Turning Point: Dale Carnegie Classes] by Diane Brady (July 22, 2013) ''Bloomberg Business''.</ref><ref>''Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson'' by Jeff Guin (2013) Simon & Schuster. ISBN 1451645163.</ref>{{efn|This adds an extra bit of [[irony]] to the The Dickies' song ''I'm OK, You're OK'', which includes the lyric, "I'm in love with Squeaky Fromme."}}
|-
|''How to Stop Worrying and Start Living''
|Carnegie, Dale
|1948
|
|-
|''Shut up and stop whining: How to end your addiction to self help books''
|[[User:Javascap|Ctibor, Javiar]]
|{{CURRENTYEAR}}
|Okay, not really, but he is thinking of writing it.
|-
|''EST: Playing the Game the New Way (The Game of Life)''
|Frederick, Carl
|1974
|Presents the concepts taught in [[Erhard Seminars Training]] in book form; the author was sued by Werner Erhard claiming it was an infringement on his intellectual property rights but the suit failed and the book became a best seller in 1975.
|-
|''I'm OK, You're OK''
|Harris, Thomas
|1969
|A classic presentation of Transactional Analysis, on the best seller lists for two years in the early 1970s.
|-
|''We Are Not Afraid''
|Hickam, Homer
|2002
|Some truly banal positive thinking 'n' go-get-em motivational talk wrapped in teh American flag and "we stand up to bullies after 9/11" [[homeland security|BS]] here, written at about a 6<sup>th</sup>-grade reading level.
|-
|''Think and Grow Rich''
|Hill, Napoleon
|1937
|Considered a classic on entrepreneurship written during the [[Great Depression]]; much of it is about good planning for the future and positive thinking, but it includes the pseudoscientific concept of tapping into "infinite intelligence" and a weird chapter on sexual sublimation. Once you move beyond his own writings Hill's life is not pleasant to study.<ref>Matt Novak, "The Untold Story of Napoleon Hill, the Greatest Self-Help Scammer of All Time," ''Gizmodo'', 6 December 2016 https://gizmodo.com/the-untold-story-of-napoleon-hill-the-greatest-self-he-1789385645</ref>
|-
|''Born to Win''
|James, Muriel and Dorothy Jongeward
|1971
|More Transactional Analysis
|-
|''Rich Dad, Poor Dad''
|[[Robert Kiyosaki|Kiyosaki, Robert]] and Sharon Lechter
|1997
|Financial self-help combined with ''[[The Secret]]''.<ref>[https://slate.com/business/2016/02/robert-kiyosaki-s-ongoing-legal-dispute-says-everything-about-the-shadiness-of-personal-finance-gurus.html This Legal Dispute Says Everything About the Shadiness of Personal Finance Gurus] by Helaine Olen (Feb 11, 20162:24 PM) ''Slate''.</ref>
|-
|''Psycho-Cybernetics''
|Maltz, Maxwell
|1960
|Despite the esoteric name this is mostly basic goal-setting and developing one's social skills with some [[Christianity]] and self-[[hypnosis]] mixed in.
|-
|''Let's Develop''
|Newman, Fred
|1994
|An attempt to promote Newman's controversial [[Social Therapy]] to the self-help market.
|-
|''The Power of Positive Thinking''
|Peale, Norman Vincent
|1952
|A collection of veiled self-hypnosis techniques and difficult to substantiate [[anecdotes]]. Peale was the [[Trump]] family's pastor,<ref>[https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/donald-trump-2016-norman-vincent-peale-213220/ How Norman Vincent Peale Taught Donald Trump to Worship Himself: The magnate’s biographer explains the spiritual guide behind his relentless self-confidence.] by Gwenda Blair (October 06, 2015) ''Politico''.</ref> eventually showing some extremely negative aspects of purely 'positive thinking'.<ref name=miller>[https://archive.org/details/sim_reporter_1955-01-13_12_1/page/18/mode/2up Some Negative Thinking About Norman Vincent Peale] by William Lee Miller (January 13, 1955) ''The Reporter''. Pages 19-24.</ref>{{efn|{{cquote|And so what does the Peal phenomenon mean? It means that an old, wrong answer to our new American problems is very popular and that we have a hard choice to make. We are a people accustomed to simplicity and success and unprepared for tragedy, suddenly thrust into mammoth responsibilities in a complex world and a tragic time. In the face of hard and unexpecteed facts we can rise to a new maturity, or we can turn instead to those who pat us on the head and say it isn't so at all, like the Reverend Doctor Norman Vincent Peale.|||William Lee Miller<ref name=miller/>{{rp|24}}}}}}
|-
|''12 Rules for Life''
|[[Jordan Peterson|Peterson, Jordan B.]]
|2018
|Heavily guided towards young men seeking guidance. Filled with about what you would expect from JBP.
|-
|''Harmonic Wealth: The Secret of Attracting the Life You Want''
|[[James Arthur Ray|Ray, James Arthur]]
|2008
|On the New York Times bestseller list in 2008.  The author later made the news in October 2009 when 3 died and 19 were hospitalized after a 2 hour "sweat lodge" ceremony at a [[large group awareness training]] he was conducting in [[Sedona]], [[Arizona]].
|-
|''Reader's Digest Do-It-Yourself Manual''
|(The editors of Reader's Indigestion)
|1965
|A classic volume of professional tips and projects.
|-
|''The Miracle of Psycho-Command Power''
|Reed, Scott
|1972
|A poorly-conceived and frankly ridiculous ripoff of ''Psycho-Cybernetics'' and ''Think and Grow Rich'' mixed with pseudoscientific information on [[handwriting analysis]] and claims to teach you how to control others' actions by staring at them.<ref>If you remember the ads in comic books and supermarket tabloids during the 1970s and 1980s for a book telling you how to draw riches and lovers to you with your magnetic gaze, this was that infamous book.  The hilarious illustrations and terminology the author invents are not to be missed! [http://books.google.com/books/about/The_miracle_of_psycho_command_power.html?id=Gp8sFAkh2N4C See it here]</ref>
|-
|''Awaken the Giant Within : How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical and Financial Destiny!''
|Robbins, Anthony ("Tony")
|1992
|Summed up to one sentence: "Get off your butt and do something." Recent motivational stuff includes such things as fire walking (seriously).<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20120723000645/http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/07/21-burned-walking-on-hot-coals-at-tony-robbins-events.html</ref>
|-
|''Possibility Thinking''
|Schuller, Robert
|1967
|A Christian [[televangelist]]'s contributions to the self-help market.
|-
|''Be Happy, You Are Loved''
|Schuller, Robert
|1986
|Again, a Christian televangelist's contributions to the self-help market.
|-
|''Passages''
|Sheehy, Gail
|1974
|Very popular, reasonably "wise", but if the reader is not on the same "life track" as her chapters, it rapidly loses value.
|-
|''Self-Help: With Illustrations of Character, Conduct and Perseverence''
|Smiles, Samuel
|1859
|Collection of stories praising those who improved their lives through hard work, thrift and education. Available online for free.[http://archive.org/details/selfhelpconducta00935gut]
|-
|''In Tune With the Infinite''
|Trine, Ralph Waldo
|1897
|"Send out your thought—thought is a force, and it has [[occult]] power of unknown proportions when rightly used and wisely directed—send out your thought that the right situation or the right work will come to you at the right time, in the right way, and that you will recognize it when it comes." Available online for free.[http://www.brainybetty.com/2007Motivation/Ralph%20Waldo%20Trine%20-%20In%20Tune%20with%20the%20Infinite.pdf]
|-
|}

== Other books that purport to make your life better if you read them ==
*Bach, Richard, ''Jonathan Livingston Seagull'' — [[omnipotence]] through adrenaline junkiehood.  Lots of bird photos to inspire the reader.
*Covey, Stephen, ''The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People'' — Covey managed to parlay that book into an empire of personal organizers and inspirational material.<ref>[http://www.franklincovey.com FranklinCovey] is not to be confused with  [http://www.franklin.com Franklin Electronic Publishers].</ref>
*Johnson, Spencer, ''Who Moved My Cheese?'' — a rodent parable.
*[[L. Ron Hubbard|Hubbard, L. Ron]], ''[[Dianetics]]'' — later became the basis for a [[Scientology|noxious]] [[cult]].
*Orr, Leonard and Ray, Sondra, ''Rebirthing in the New Age'' — Barely edges out ''The Miracle of Psycho-Command Power'' as the most ludicrous piece of [[Bullshit|shite]] ever to come out of the whole self-help/New Age mess. Claims you can achieve physical [[immortality]].
*Schwartz, David, ''The Magic of Thinking Big'' — popular among salespeople and business; [[Amway]] is fond of promoting this one too.
*Redfield, James. ''[[The Celestine Prophecy]]'' - how to vibrate yourself off the planet. 
*Pirsig, Robert, ''[[Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance]]: An Inquiry into Values'' — how to use spanners without getting your hands dirty.
*Byrne, Rhonda, ''[[The Secret]]'' — a 2006 book/movie about the supposed power of [[wishful thinking]].
*Trump, Donald ''The Art of the Deal'' — 1987, an entirely ghostwritten "autobiography" of [[Donald Trump]]'s. The book is an 11 step program for business success directly inspired by Norman Vincent Peale's works. The ties to Peale and Trump run deep; Trump went to Peale's church and Peale presided at his first wedding.

===Some generic stuff that needs crystallising===
*[[Kevin Trudeau|Trudeau, Kevin]] — an ever-growing list of books "they" don't want you to read.

===Skepticism for the whole damned movement===
*[[Derren Brown|Brown, Derren]] — ''Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine'' [[Special:Booksources/978-0552172356|ISBN 978-0552172356]]
*Salerno, Steve — ''SHAM: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless'' [[Special:Booksources/978-1400054091|ISBN 978-1400054091]]

==See also==
*[[Blaming the victim]]
*[[Human potential movement]]
*[[Neurolinguistic programming]]
*[[Pick-up artist]]

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

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[[Category:Psychology]]
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[[Category:Self help|*]]
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