Self-Help Books and Positive Thinking

In today's confusing world, it is common to seek help outside oneself to understand the world and yourself. This was the genesis of the self-help book, with everything good and bad that entails.

The problem with self-help books is not that they are bad. It is that many of them are good, but some of them are bad, and the bad ones are good at masquerading as good ones. How can you tell the difference?.

Judging Self-Help Books

Use some simple rules when you're looking for a book to help you help yourself. What are you looking for specifically: help to defeat an addiction? To overcome longstanding resentment of your parents? To figure out why you wake up sometimes crying? Each of these problems requires a different sort of book.

Never buy a self-help book that offers an easy answer. There are no easy answers, only hard ones that are reached primarily by looking inside yourself and poking at the things you don't like. A good self-help book will give you a structure with which you can do that.

Most use steps. The classic is the 12-step program, which takes you along a baby-step route to self-understanding and self-actualization. Steven Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Successful People is this sort of book, giving you seven simple habits to cultivate in yourself one at a time.

The ones to be wary of are the ones that use cool new trends to identify themselves. For instance, many use the phrase "The Last Self-Help Book You'll Ever Need." Really? Then why are there so many thousands of others? Others talk about "empowerment" and "victimhood." Reject these.

The self-help industry is built at least in part on the theory that people will always think they need help. The first thing many self-help books do is ask you a series of questions that almost anyone will answer "yes" to: "do you sometimes resent your parents? Does life stress you out, confuse you, make you want to hide? Then we can help!"

Instead, look for self-help books that address what your specific real problem is: achieving success, dealing with relationships, quitting smoking. Look also for the ones that come from professionals with real credentials. Dr. Laura Schlessinger, for instance, is a doctor of physiology, not psychology. Dr. Phil is a degreed psychologist, but currently does not have a license to practice because he failed to complete counseling for an alleged sexual affair with a patient.

Skip the celebrities, and look for real doctors and therapists: the ones that can list foundations you've heard of in their bios, or can direct you to organizations they work with currently. These are the people with a proven track record, and are the ones that will write books that can help you.

Self-Help and New Age?

It may seem odd that self-help is lumped in with the new age portion instead of the scientific one, but the fact is, there's not necessarily any scientific proof that self-help books will help you out. They may. Then again, they might not.

Just like new age techniques, the effectiveness of a self-help book depends largely on your own motivation and abilities. Are you ready to make changes in your life, with guidance? Can you stick to a plan? If so, then any technique you choose to help yourself is likely to help. Just choose the one you're most comfortable with.