Self-help books should be memoirs, not therapy

Once self-help slogans become a book, it has merit. We trust it. Despite the fact, that they can be written by anyone, sometimes even by people we wouldn’t take advice from in real-life.

This is an essay about the self-help industry and why we should not believe everything only because it was published.

There was a time when I read every self-help book that someone recommended.

• “A book that changed my life.” - Sign me up.

• “This book showed me a completely different perspective.” - Put in cart.

• “This book made me the happiest and healthiest I’ve ever been.” - Yes, please!

With the last page came the high, the euphoria. “Now, I have everything I need to get my life back on track.” I got into action mode, wrote a to-do list, bought all the things the book told me to (within reason), and started. A few days, sometimes weeks later, I was my old self again. The book and to-do list forgotten; after the high came the low, and I started browsing the digital self-help shelves again.

For a long time, I didn’t question this behavior. I just went with it - because everyone else did too. It wasn’t just influencers on social media promoting their self-help guides and books; it was close friends too. Everyone (even people I would never have guessed) recommended a self-help book to me.

Then, one day, I read this book and listened to this podcast at almost the same time. After that, I never looked at a self-help book the same way.

Unsplash, by Alicia Christin Gerald

My journey to self-help recovery

The mid-20s are your discovery era. A time when you find yourself, shape your personality, shed your parent’s beliefs, and redefine what you want your life to look like. At least, that is what my 20s looked like. I was obsessed with improving myself, hustle culture, and getting better and better. And I followed a lot of self-help influencers.

One of the influencers I followed was the.holistic.psychologist. I loved the bite-sized content on her Instagram that taught me about boundaries and childhood trauma. Then she wrote a book: How to Do the Work. I bought it and started reading.

At the same time, I listened to the podcast Escaping NXIVM. A story about a woman escaping a cult that many people believed to be a successful self-help or self-development business. But it was a pyramid scheme whose leader was a sex offender.

Up until that point, I never realized how many self-help influencers create unique words and phrases for something that already has a well-known word (e. g. “dark night of the soul” = rock bottom, “awakened awareness” = being present). Some might argue that this is just a marketing technique. That they are trying to stand out in a sea of self-help content. But there is another effect: It makes them sound like experts. Creating new terms, makes something very common sound like something new. And by using this new terminology with confidence, you seem like an expert.

→ Presenting themselves as an expert in the field by developing new terminology.

The next issue I started to see more and more is the negative view and downright ignorance of science, psychotherapy, and modern medicine. I am all for alternative treatments and for challenging modern medicine to make it more inclusive. But many self-help influencers and books ignore that anything not yet proven by science, is a theory and not fact.

→ Viewing psychotherapy and modern medicine as invalid/irrelevant and stating medical hypotheses as fact without any references to support that theory.

By ignoring modern medicine and science, many self-help influencers tell their readers they should do “the work” themselves. “Only you yourself can fully understand what you need.” I do agree that we can shift our own perspective, we can shift how we think, how we react, and with great willpower, even how we feel. But I don’t think it is all just us, especially not healing. Healing is something we have to take charge of, yes. But telling people, especially people who are hurt and vulnerable (the target audience), that it is all their responsibility is dangerous. It makes you feel alone, isolated.

→ Emphasizing that the individual has the power of control.

Another thing I didn’t notice until listening to the podcast is how many self-help influencers want you to join their groups or their circle. For people that emphasize self-healing, many of them put a lot of emphasis on the power of a group.

→ Creating a space for people to go to.

Reclaiming your power, forsaking medicine, manic self-improvement, and following a revolutionary teacher could describe two things: a self-help influencer or a cult. And once I saw these parallels, I couldn’t unsee them.

I wondered: “Are self-help books a waste of time?”

I do believe that sharing your experiences with mental health struggles, showing how you’ve overcome them and what has helped you is a valuable thing. Especially for people who don’t have easy access to mental health professionals or have been ignored by the system for way too long. That is why self-help books are valuable. And for many, these books are the start of a successful mental health journey. And I am sure that some books have actually made an impact in the relevant science they are challenging.

The main issue I have is that anyone can publish a self-help book. Expert or not. Sometimes by people we wouldn’t take advice from in real-life. There is now review process, no quality control to make sure the content doesn’t do more harm than good. But once it is a book and it gets published, the story has merit. It seems legit and people read the book and believe what is written to be 100% true. It doesn’t help that some books were only written to make money or increase the following, not to help people. And this is where I see the problem: Once self-help becomes a business, the line between sharing your experiences and trying to force your strategy down the reader’s throat, gets thinner and thinner.

If said influencer would write an article in a valued magazine instead, that article would be labeled as an “opinion piece”. People then immediately know that they are reading about someone’s experience and that their life won’t magically improve if they follow the author’s life to a tee. But if that article is turned into a book, saying the exact same things, the perceived level of expertise is a different one entirely.

Because, in the end, sharing your experience makes you an expert in your own life, but not in anyone else’s. That’s why many self-help books are actually just memoirs and not self-therapy.

If you feel like reading more, here you can read my full review of How to Do the Work on Goodreads.

xoxo

Annika