The dangers of self-help…
That post title might seem somewhat ironic, given I spend a lot of time reading self-help books and we have many posts on the site that tie into the theme. I’m even writing a book that is largely a self-help guide for caregivers, one that focuses strongly on mental health and ways to thrive.
Why then, write a post on the dangers of self-help?
The answer is that there are some very serious problems with the self-help industry and with many of the books you read (if not all of them!). This doesn’t mean that you need to steer away from self-help entirely, thankfully, because the information can sometimes be incredibly powerful.
You do, however, need to be cautious.
Take everything you read with the proverbial pinch of salt. And always, always, pay attention to yourself.
The Dangers of Self-Help
It’s Often Full of False Hope
We often turn to self-help because we want to feel better. Some books even promote this in their advertising or title, like How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Feel Miserable About Anything – Yes, Anything!
Yet, you’re rarely going to find happiness from a course or a book.
Don’t expect your life to change either. Finding the exact right piece of advice at the right time could make a huge difference, that’s true, but this doesn’t happen very often.
False hope isn’t just disappointing. It can be bad for your mental health, especially if you end up thinking that the problem was with you, rather than the advice you were following.
Indeed, self-help books often make people feel like they’re worthless and not good enough.
Bad Advice
Here’s another problem – self-help advice isn’t always right.
The idea of positive thinking is a great example of this. While positive thinking is important, many people take this too far, suggesting that you should always focus on the positive.
Taking positivity that far isn’t a good idea at all. Doing so undervalues negative emotions and bad experiences. It can also be bad for your mental health, as you’re simply suppressing difficult things.
Here's another problem - following some advice ends up keeping you in an unhealthy situation.
This issue is common with self-help books that focus on mindfulness or on changing your perception. Such books often imply that you should simply accept whatever is going on, a pattern that can lead you to stay in an abusive situation.
Don't do this.
Seriously. Don't use self-help as a way to justify staying in an abusive situation. If you're not sure whether your situation is a problem or not, get outside advice. Ask someone who can see the situation objectively, especially as you may not be able to.
There’s An Opportunity Cost
An opportunity cost is when you lose out on one thing because you’re doing something else.
So, the wrong self-help book could simply mean that you miss out on alternative approaches that could be more powerful for you, like therapy or simply starting to be more physically active.
The opportunity cost with self-help can be high, as there are so many different books, videos, and podcasts, many of which are quite involved. You might even spend years looking at a given approach, before finally realizing that it isn’t a good fit.
The opportunity cost may be even higher with self-help for caregivers, as most caregivers don’t have that much free time anyway. The last thing you want is to be investing the little time you have in something that’s not going to help.
You Can Become Obsessed With Your Mental State
One example is how some self-help techniques end up making you obsessed with your mental state. You’re always looking to feel better and to be better… but you might be doing yourself a mischief instead.
As it turns out, focusing too heavily on your mental state can easily make you feel worse.
Take happiness, for example. The more you try to be happy, the less happy you may become. Why? Because you notice every time you’re not in an ‘optimal’ state. You might even get disheartened by how you do feel, which certainly doesn’t help things.
Similarly, spending a lot of time with self-help books can make you much more strongly aware of what you’re thinking and feeling throughout the day. While that effect is sometimes useful, it can easily be damaging instead, especially if you overdo it.
Conversely, if you step away from the self-help game and simply live your life – you’ll probably be happier.
You might also find, as is often suggested, that there’s more happiness in helping other people and in doing meaningful work than there ever is in obsessing about your own mind.
Why There Are So Many Problems With Self-Help
So, why does this happen? Self-help authors appear to have the best intentions and the theories that they present are often well thought out and even powerful. So, why is the risk of harm so significant?
There are a few key reasons.
Self-Help Writers Are, At Best, Experts In Their Field
Most self-help authors know a lot about their own field of expertise, whether that’s mindfulness, self-compassion, cognitive behavioral therapy, depression, acceptance and commitment therapy, or something else entirely.
They’re able to speak at length about their techniques, often with a wealth of anecdotes and evidence.
However, there are plenty of fields that they don’t know well. This can be a problem, as it makes it difficult for the authors to see gaps in their approaches – or times where what they’re suggesting might not work at all.
The gaps in the author’s knowledge are a serious issue if you take everything they write as fact. This is why it’s so important to pay attention to your own experience instead.
Books Are Written for a General Audience
Self-help books aren’t written for individuals. They’re written for a broad group of people.
Some, like The Happiness Trap, are written for almost anyone. Others may have a more focused group in mind, like Fierce Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff, which is written for women or Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, which focuses on children from specific backgrounds.
But, no matter how specific a self-help book is, it’s still written for a huge group of people – and there are many variations between readers.
There’s simply no way that everything the author talks about applies to every person that’s reading it. For example,
- Many self-help books rely on visualization techniques. But people’s ability to visualize varies dramatically and some can’t do so at all.
- Similarly, plenty of authors talk about how the mind is always chattering away (the so-called monkey mind). Again though, this isn’t true. While it’s rare, some people live with a quiet mind instead, one that is devoid of automatic thoughts.
- Most authors won’t be experts in trauma, so may present techniques that are unhelpful or even risky for someone who has been through significant trauma.
- Books on boundaries often talk about the importance of cutting toxic people out of your life entirely. That idea becomes more complicated if the toxic person is an aging parent who can’t take care of themselves.
This is another reason that you must filter everything through your own knowledge and experience.
Don’t assume that everything the author says is accurate and applies to you. They may be an expert in their field, but they’re not an expert when it comes to you.
It’s Easy to Misunderstand or Misapply the Ideas
The two previous issues are amplified by the fact that you’re learning from a book or perhaps a YouTube speaker.
This means you have no direct contact with the person who’s teaching you. How do you know that you’re applying the techniques well? That you’re understanding things correctly?
Most of the time, you don’t.
Take mindfulness, as an example. As Joe Hunt points out, it’s easy to assume that mindfulness means accepting everything and, also, that you’ve only accepted things when you feel good about them.
Yet, in practice, mindfulness focuses on changing your relationship to your experiences. Feeling good isn’t the goal at all.
The Quality of Advice Varies
Some self-help books focus on well-researched approaches, ones that work well for many people. Others don’t.
After all, you don’t need to be an expert to publish a book – and this is an incredibly profitable industry. It’s not so surprising that some authors have jumped in guns blazing, even though their advice isn’t that good.
What You Can Do
Trust Yourself
Self-help for caregivers is most powerful when you’re learning the right thing at the right time.
To do this, you need to take your learning into your own hands. Be curious about new ideas, but don’t take any of them as being the absolute truth. Instead, play around with them.
See how they make you feel.
If something seems to be causing more harm than good – stop. Seriously, don’t push through with something harmful just because the author tells you to. The author doesn’t know your personal situation or experiences. You must trust yourself.
Also remember that often, you need to find your own path and figure things out for yourself. A self-help book might provide some insight, but it will rarely be the solution on its own.
Talk To Someone Else
Talking to a therapist can help too.
Therapists aren’t infallible either. They have their own biases and might give the wrong advice (so you still need to trust yourself first). But, they can give you personalized advice in the way that no self-help book ever can.
If a therapist isn’t a viable option, why not look for advice elsewhere?
Friends are often helpful. Even forums can provide you with some information and discussion.
Once again, the trick is to stay curious and listen to yourself.
Get A Medical Diagnosis
Before plunging headlong into self-help, take a look at the medical side of things. Some health conditions present with a variety of psychological, psychosomatic, and physical symptoms.
If you don't take this approach, you could miss some key underlying causes to the challenges you're experiencing. Plus, a diagnosis may help you to work out the type of work you need to be doing and whether self-help is right for you.
Research The Author
Also,
before you start trusting any book to tell you how to live or how to think, check out the author. Take a close look at their credentials and their history. Can they be trusted?
Take Jordan B Peterson as an example. He wrote the books 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos and Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life. Both are popular self-help books, yet Peterson himself is a highly controversial figure.
Take a Toolbox Approach
One of the best approaches is to see self-help theories and techniques as tools in a toolbox. You can pick out different ones at different times, depending on what is relevant to the situation.
This could even mean that you sometimes use apparently contradictory ideas.
For example, sometimes you might use mindful self-compassion to emotionally support yourself through a challenging situation, while other times you might use physiology to shift your emotional state instead.
Seeing these ideas as tools makes it easier to listen to yourself.
Know That You’re Good Enough
Finally, before you start any self-improvement journey, it’s important to realize that you’re good enough as you are.
Truly.
You’re doing your best, whatever that looks like. It doesn’t matter how many goals you fail at, you’re still valuable and you’re trying. That’s more than enough.
Plus, as Mark Manson points out, people who think they’re doing well and want to do better often learn plenty from self-help books. People with poor self-image typically don’t. So, if you fall into the latter group, it’s worth working on you how you perceive yourself before digging too heavily into self-help.
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