Help yourself

HELP YOURSELF

In the last couple of decades, self-help books have been a publishing phenomenon, often topping the bestseller lists. Readers have lapped up their advice on how to do a wide variety of things, from becoming successful and rich to improving their relationships. If you’re facing a particular problem in your life, there’s a host of self-help books for you. If you have the idea that you want to improve yourself in some way, 1there are any number of self-help titles just waiting to advise you. If you want a successful career, no problem – step-by-step guides will tell you exactly what to do. But, despite their enormous success, there’s a question many people ask: do these books actually do what they claim to?

Obviously, as in any field of publishing, some self-help books are better than others.2 Some may be based on actual research and case studies – there’s some substance to them that suggests they can, at least to some extent, be taken seriously. Others, however, amount to little more than psychobabble – empty nonsense dressed up as serious psychological insight. These books bombard the reader with a mass of meaningless jargon, disguising the fact that they have nothing to say beyond the obvious that you would not need to buy a book to know. 3 It’s the latter category that has given self-help books a bad name among critics of the genre.

The kind of advice given in self-help books is often more or less the same. Pretty standard statements are made in many of them, but does this advice stand up to scrutiny? Psychologists who have studied a range of self-help books connected with happiness say the answer to this is ‘not always’. They say that although the emphasis the books place on aiming for good relationships with families, friends and colleagues 4 has, in some ways, some scientific basis in terms of what does actually lead to personal happiness, in other ways the advice given is actually false.

5 For example, the books commonly tell you that it is good to express your anger; the psychologists say this simply causes you to remain angry. You are often told to try to think happy thoughts when you are sad; the psychologists say that attempting to do this simply emphasizes your unhappiness for you. The books tell you to focus entirely on your aims in life, looking only at the desired outcome; psychologists say you need to focus just as much on the problems you have to overcome in order to reach your goals. The books tell you to keep praising yourself to increase and maintain a high level of self-belief; the psychologists say that actually this doesn’t work because 6 you need praise from other people in order to increase your self-esteem.

Perhaps the key question on self-help books is: do they work? Do people feel they have directly helped them? Whatever critics may say, do the people who buy and read them get real results from them? The answer to this question appears to be ‘sometimes’. 7 Research indicates that the kind of book that deals with a particular problem can be effective in helping people with that problem, particularly if the problem in question isn’t a severe one, for example mild depression or anxiety. The situation is less clear with books dealing with personal growth or development. Some people do say that these books have helped them but it is by no means certain, and hard to measure, whether this is really the case.

8. What is clear about all self-help books, however, is that they offer people hope. 9.The actual advice they give and whether or not this is accurate or effective is probably less important than the fact that they tell the reader that change is possible, that there is hope of a better life, that people can overcome difficulties and improve themselves and their situation. While this may sound like a good thing, there is, however, a downside to it. To get people to buy them, these books often make exaggerated claims about what they will do for people. 10They can raise unrealistic expectations in the reader, suggesting that a better life can quite easily be achieved, that anyone can get what they want out of life. The truth is of course that changing yourself and your life may be very difficult indeed and require an immense amount of effort, if it is even achievable at all. So self-help books are open to the claim that they present a false picture that can only lead to disappointment in the end.

1  In the first paragraph, what does the writer emphasize about self-help books?

A  The fact that one person might buy many of them. 

B  How quickly the genre became popular. 

C  The number of them available.     

2  In the second paragraph, the writer expresses a preference for self-help books which ________.

A  don’t use any jargon at all    

B  explain technical terms in a clear way 

C  give examples to support their advice     

3  The writer says that self-help books containing a lot of ‘psychobabble’ ________.

A  are seldom popular with readers 

B  have affected the reputation of all self-help books 

C  exist in greater numbers than other kinds of self-help book    

4  What does the writer say about self-help books connected with happiness?

A  There is evidence to support some of the advice they give. 

B  They vary more than other kinds of self-help book. 

C  They are the most popular kind of self-help book.    

5  Psychologists say that some advice in books about happiness ________.

A  could produce different bad feelings in people

B  could make people feel worse than they did 

C  is too hard for people to carry out   

6  Which of the following do psychologists believe?

A  You won’t have greater self-confidence unless other people praise you. 

B  Focusing on problems is more important than focusing on goals. 

C  Thinking only about aims can result in greater unhappiness.     

7  Research into whether self-help books really help people suggests that ________.

A  those dealing with personal growth and development are the least useful 

B  people want to believe that they have helped them a lot 

C  they are not very useful for serious problems  

8  What do all self-help books have in common, according to the writer?

A  They all contain some useful advice. 

B  They all have the same basic message. 

C  They all sympathize with the reader.    

9  When asking whether self-help books work, the writer suggests that ________.

A  this may be more important than whether the advice is correct

B  not enough attention has been paid to this 

C  readers may not be honest about this    

10  The writer concludes in that last paragraph that self-help books ________.

A  are more influential than is generally thought 

B  may actually be harmful to people 

C  are only taken seriously by certain kinds of person