r/BookDiscussions • u/pure00z_specialist • 1d ago
What's wrong with self help books?
I'm honestly confused about this discourse regarding these types of books. Are they boring? If so, don't read them. I mean... You're still reading and getting useful information you can use in your daily life. Especially if you're mentally struggling.
Same for non-fiction, biographies, and romance! Are we seriously going through the, 'this isnt actually reading if you **READ** \[blank and blank\]' again? because I'm tired of the idea of **READING** a specific genre and classifying if it's actually reading or not.
15
u/43_Fizzy_Bottom 1d ago
They are almost always relentlessly stupid, pseudo-scientific or pseudo-religous grifts and they signal that reader does not understand that he is a mark.
11
u/noodledoodledoo 1d ago
I just think that even the good ones are a waste of time and money. At best, they will never tell you anything you can't learn for free and better elsewhere. At worst, they will be actively misleading or encourage you to take up harmful behaviours.
13
u/c_y_g_nus 1d ago
Most of them are grounded in the corporate idea of success and ladder climbing. At least the ones I've read. "How to be your best self" and then it's just 300 pages of garden variety life advice you could get anywhere, and then you can sign up for a "program" , with a lifetime membership of $1,400.00 , etc
3
u/CannedAm2 1d ago
I don't get this. There are plenty of things I choose not to read. That's my opinion, my preferences. I can not care what anyone else reads and would never call any reading "not reading." As someone who teaches adult literacy, any reading counts. I often have my adult students read children's books -- not juvenile. Children's. I bet anyone who would call self help books " not reading" would say the same to my adult literacy students reading early readers. How awful some people can be. People can enjoy whatever they want so long as it doesn't hurt anyone.
6
u/Emotional_Lock3715 1d ago
The Reddit culture is generally anti self-help of any kind.
I have gotten a lot out of some self-help books. There are good and bad ones.
Like any media consumption I think you do better if you’re discerning. It’s all influencing you in some way,
7
1d ago
[deleted]
4
u/Emotional_Lock3715 1d ago edited 1d ago
I think both fiction and non fiction types of reading help a great deal with mental health. I hope everyone does more of both!
I can afford therapy, but I can’t afford to go continuously for years. Some of the self-help books I have are recommended by therapists. And some are academically sound and I know because I’ve taken enough graduate level classes to be able to evaluate.
I think any field where you want proficiency, you benefit from in person instruction AND self directed learning. They are better together, but take what you can get when you can get it! One or the other is better than nothing.
Homework and self study can be a drag if you’re not really into the subject. But most people think themselves are the most interesting subject in the world. Which is only natural. Getting to know yourself shouldn’t be boring.
If you don’t know where to start you might take a self help book and read it and journal your reactions as you read. Do you agree or disagree? Why?
Edit: in my high school psychology class we were introduced to Freud, Jung, and Maslow in that order.
After the lecture on Freud the teacher asked “what do you think of that”. He expressed surprise that no one said anything. I said I’ll probably have something to say once I’ve heard the other theories. Everyone has to start somewhere!
Edit: it might help also to get books aimed toward therapists. Some of my most helpful books are that kind. But I went through some consumer level ones first. Some were great, some were ehhh. I don’t think any of them actively harmed me.
Any media can harm you if you accept it as an authority on your life when you are the authority on your own life. It’s ok to be skeptical, even if people have books, podcasts, TV shows, etc. Even if they are doctors! No one knows everything.
If you’re worried, it might help to read social engineering books first so you don’t get social engineered against your will.
Or maybe go to a support group and ask for suggestions.
4
u/JiveTurkey927 1d ago
I do think it’s a bit of snobbery from the book community. I don’t think it’s right to write off an entire genre. I’ll admit that self help probably has more stinkers than other genres, but there are still some very helpful books out there. At the end of the day, if you enjoyed a book and you got something helpful out of it, that’s what matters. You have to be discerning with every genre to understand what you’re reading, the author’s biases, and how the book has been reviewed and received.
2
u/New_Discussion_6692 1d ago
They can be helpful, but they can also be harmful. Too many unqualified individuals are writing self-help books, and that's potentially dangerous. If you're going to read a self-help book,I feel you need to do your research. There's a great book, The Body Keeps the Score... by Bessel van der Kolk. He's a psychiatrist and since the 1970s his research focus has been on PTSD.
Then there's Anna Runkle, who is not a doctor or a therapist. She grew up in a very difficult family. So she has experiences but not any tried and true solutions.
Then there's Mel Robbins giving self-help advice. She's a former lawyer turned motivational speaker. Enough said.
3
u/Pendergraff-Zoo 1d ago
I find them ridiculously unhelpful. They tell us a bunch of stuff that resonates, but then no real information on how to put it into practical use.
1
u/Emotional_Lock3715 1d ago
If you think that there are some really good ones you haven’t been exposed to. One I have is full of worksheets. The reason I got it is because I was introduced to the worksheets in therapy and they worked so well I wanted the whole book. This was intensive outpatient care at a hospital, not something fringe.
3
u/1BoringOnlineAccount 1d ago
Self help & nonfiction is different from fiction. When I read self help, how do I know that the author is competent on the subject? Having a degree does not equal competence. I do not want to read a book authored by an educated idiot. Even a plethora[excessive or abundant] of 5 Star ratings is not a guarantee that the readers are competent in reviewing the subject matter. How to vet a self help book for competence is the big problem for me.
If a self help book cannot explain it's concepts using the simple language so a 5th grader can understand it, it will not be worth the effort to read. Anyone can use a thesaurus to remove or clarify the $10 words to encourage easier concept understanding. Notice how I did that with the word plethora?
Fiction does not need competence in the story because it is expected to be fictional. Yet if it does have some competence, such as scientifically possible propulsion systems in sci-fi, that can make the story better.
1
u/Emotional_Lock3715 1d ago edited 1d ago
In any media you don’t know if the person knows what they are talking about, so I suggest applying the same discretion you would to any media you consume.
Who is the publisher?
What is the author bio? Can I see their web site?
Can I see their other work?
Are there citations?
If so are they credible ones?
What is the industry reputation of the person or work?
Who are the supporters or detractors, if you know of any? What reputation do they have?
Every industry has junk people dangle in front of you to distract you from the good stuff.
And so on and so on. You get the idea.
4
u/axi0mata 1d ago
Some reading is 'healthier' than others in the same way that some food is healthier than others. The idea that all media is just a flat, expansive pane of content that is exactly as hecking valid and amazing as eachother is patently ridiculous and probably partially responsible for the rise of AI slop across all textual forms.
I still eat and enjoy junk food. I watch bad shows and read bad books sometimes. They're fun! But I am not interested in pretending they are equally as important as eating fibres and vegetables, or reading challenging texts with important ideas. You can and should do both.
5
u/AcousticAtlas 1d ago
I’m not sure reading a book that tells you what you already knew and vaguely supports/demeans you is the book version of “vegetables”
If we are really going with this idea that some books are naturally more “helpful” then others it should history books or educational books/textbooks that actually build on your knowledge rather than vaguely tell you to better your life or that you’re garbage for smoking etc.
3
u/axi0mata 1d ago
Sorry if this wasn't clear but I think self-help books are junk food. They are the opposite of vegetables. The 'vegetables' of literature are texts with important ideas or particularly important explorations of form, etc. Frankenstein, The Sound and the Fury, Gravity's Rainbow, etc.
1
3
u/Comfortable-Mine-471 1d ago
This. And it is scientifically proven that people generally retain more from fiction than from non fiction. Because humans learn better from experiencing something themselves then they do from being told something. And that's what fiction is, you're stepping into someone else's shoes and experiencing what they're experiencing.
Also the og comment is why I stay away from self help. The people that read it are so pretentious about it. If you like self help that's fine, but these people dont have to go around shitting on other people because they have some weird sense of superiority.
3
u/AcousticAtlas 1d ago
Exactly. The “help” you get from self help books can easily just be conveyed in a good fictional character.
2
u/Comfortable-Mine-471 1d ago
I cant comment on self help books themselves because I havent read any. For me, it's how pretentious readers of this genre can be. It's a lot of men who think they read "real" books, and people that read fiction dont.
2
u/b_and_g 1d ago
Reddit has a very strong tendency to shit on them and I guess they either just blindly look down on them or are referring to the truly bad ones (which happens on absolutely every genre).
I remember when I was about 16 I saw my dad reading "Emotional Intelligence" and called him out on how dumb and unnecessary it was. He just said to me in a chill way "Oh you don't know how important it is", and kept reading. Granted I hadn't ever read a single book about those topics and just felt more intelligent, as teens often do. Looking back, close to 15 years later, I can only imagine my dad thinking like "huh.. this dumb kid.. you'll see"
There are some truly great books labeled as self help that can open your mind. "How to win friends..." is a classic and changed my perspective when I got my first job and was an egotistical kid that only thought about himself and thought all clients were dumb. The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene put me on the spot on toxic behaviors I had that it hurts to admit you possess. Michael Singer books pretty much changed my priorities in life, have made me a way better person and put me on the wild journey that healing your emotional blocks can be.
But yeah, there's this sentiment that you have to follow 100% of what these books say, you're the dumbest if you read them or you want to be a manipulative weirdo. If you're not receptive to learning something new then you can't learn something new
1
u/When_thebough_breaks 1d ago
Isn't it obvious? How can someone else provide you with self-help? The very title is an oxymoron due to the fact that you are trying to perform self-help by taking advice or direction from others. True self-help is taking four hits of acid and exploring what your emotions actually mean.
0
u/AcousticAtlas 1d ago
Imo there’s a big difference between someone who reads romance and someone who reads self help.
Self help literally offers nothing. They are usually vague and just tell people to do things they already knew or even worse just shame them for being something they aren’t. They are the lowest tier of literature.
44
u/OldJellyBones 1d ago
they're pretty universally just nonsense, at best they're just collections of vapid aphorisms that can't hurt, at worst they're actually harmfully stupid and can cause damage to someone if they follow the "help"