This $11 billion a year industry surely provides plenty of fodder for our insatiable army of cultural critics to unmask and tie to the always-nigh undermining of America. A panoply of exposés published in the previous decade takes the industry to task, to seemingly little avail. In Bright-Sided, Barbara Ehrenreich argues that the self-help movement’s tendency to promote habitual positive thinking as one road to improvement dulls our senses to the real suffering that exists in the world and is endemic of an individualistic, conservative mindset that she would very much like to see disappear. Steve Salerno, in his book SHAM, sets his targets on the low-hanging fruit of the self-help movement—the Dr. Phils and Deepak Choprahs and Laura Schlessingers of the world—but unfortunately does not provide much of an alternative for the earnest followers of these titans of talk shows. Tom Tiede is one critic who does at least offer a substitute for the New Age feel-goodery that most invokes the ire of this group of naysayers. In his Self-Help Nation, Tiede follows the tried and true make-fun-of-Tony-Robbins formula with a suggestion to eschew “self-help” for self-reliance. Amusingly, he recommends that his readers pick up one of the most-celebrated proto-self-help tomes, Emerson’s Self-Reliance, as a way to get there. Given that all of these books advocate dumping self-help solutions as a way to improve the reader’s life, one is left with the impression that it is simply self-help books all the way down.
It is fortunate and productive that these authors have taken to task the smiling charlatans that lure their multitudes of followers with unrealistic promises of salvation and happiness for the low, low price of a $1,000 weekend seminar. Like the critics, I too am skeptical that rolling a person up in a carpet and pushing them out to recreate a “birthing experience” will have much of a positive effect on that person’s life. However, the critics make a fundamental mistake when they conclude that a few bad apples in the huge self-improvement industry does a fruitless and wasteful endeavor make. In fact, several features of self-help books and the process of deliberately adopting habits to improve one’s happiness may provide benefits to its adherents that go beyond the actual message being conveyed.
Much of human success is predicated not upon raw talent, but on a person’s motivation and willpower to make painful short-term investments in one’s daily life that will pay off handsomely years in the future. In their book Willpower, Roy Baumeister and John Tierney explore the limited stock of willpower that humans possess and describe various methods for exercising this “muscle” and improving our effectiveness and, hopefully, our happiness. In addition to keeping our brains nourished with a steady stream of neuro-stimulating glucose and protein, the authors suggest that belief systems and the communities that are built to enforce them can provide a lot of bang for the mental buck in strengthening our willpower.
For one example, we can look at systems of religion. Members of organized religions are provided with three factors that dramatically extend their time horizons and strengthen their willpower: a “higher power” that motivates the faithful to live for something greater than himself, a system of rules and responsibilities that requires adherents to develop and maintain daily habits, and a community that will monitor and enforce each other’s obedience to these rules. In this way, maintaining the self-discipline to face Mecca five times a day to pray, for instance, may bring positive benefits to a Muslim’s earthly life regardless of whether or not anyone out there is actually listening. If willpower is indeed like a muscle that must be exercised to be maintained and improved, devotion to the salah likely reaps benefits that extends far beyond spiritual fulfillment and communal acceptance. In the same way, Covey’s legendary seven habits and Carnegie’s recipe for winning friends and influencing people can also improve willpower by causing people to become more deliberate and consistent in their daily choices.
Of course, not all self-help books and methods meet the criteria for improving willpower. The spectacular failure of the self-esteem movement is a case in point: simply attempting to artificially boost one’s self-esteem through positive statements and social reinforcement does not require adherents to invest any energy into developing the habits that improve willpower and ultimately well-being. Unfortunately for the early self-help-hopefuls, simply repeating to yourself “Every day, and in every way, I am getting better and better” simply won’t cut it. Self-help methods that do require daily investments and system-building, on the other hand, are likely to be just as beneficial to developing willpower as religious organizations. These methods will pack even more of a positive punch if there are communal mechanisms for enforcement and encouragement, as is evident in the success of Weight Watchers groups.
It is understandable that critics would take issue with the ineffectual kinds of self-help systems whose maladroit methods at boosting self-image and lack of beneficial habit-forming practices leave them ill-equipped to improve willpower in any meaningful way. However, the aversion to the idea of self-help itself is perplexing. It is unclear that the only path to self-improvement is paved with the more expensive measures favored by state-approved mental health specialists, many of which have a poor track record themselves. If we are worried that ignorant salvation-seekers will be plied and manipulated into accepting a false diagnosis and harmful prescriptions from charismatic false prophets, that risk seems to multiply when accompanied by a white lab coat and all of the authority tied up in it.
Certainly some people’s problems escalate to the point where professional help is necessary, but we must also consider the potential for false positives issued by the ever-growing and historically troubled Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders. For many people, an uplifting self-help book is just the ticket to getting them through a short rocky period in their lives. They may get on and off the bandwagon in tandem with the normal ups and downs of a human life but this jagged process of self-improvement is likely preferable to riding the neurological roller-coaster of SSRIs and other antidepressants.
America certainly has her share of problems, but our penchant for self-directed self-improvement doesn’t make it onto my list.
