Given the fact that the so-called “self-help industry,” or “self-help movement” is a multibillion dollar industry, I wonder that I’ve lived so many years without paying it much attention.
I saw a television special on ABC a few days ago — “Mind Games” I think it was — which recounted the horrific death of some people devoted to one of the contemporary “self-help” gurus in a sweat lodge gone wrong a couple of years ago.
That started me thinking. I went to our local library and found a copy of a fascinating book by one of the men who was featured on the show. He’s somewhat controversial, I guess, although my ignorance about the whole self-help thing is showing here. The book is called “SHAM: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless.” The author is Steve Salerno.
Whether you agree or disagree with Mr. Salerno’s approach to the topic, various parts of his book, the whole concept, or whatever — that book will make you think. I’ve always thought of these popular self-help leaders as either 1) phonies on a par with the fabled snake-oil salesmen of Old West days, or, 2) well-meaning people who genuinely believed what they were teaching. If they were in the first category, obviously they should be stopped as with anyone who’s a fraud. If in the second category, well, unless they directly harmed someone, I guess I always viewed them as some sort of “multiple vitamins of the soul”: Maybe helpful, maybe not, but probably not harmful unless you overdo them.
It seems, however, that a lot of folks really are overdoing it with these people and these “teachings.”
Anyway, make of all that what you will. I recommend you pick up a copy of the book and give it a look. I’m just part way through and it’s a real eye opener for me.