Self-help books: Are they helpful or should they just be left on the shelf?

Posted by Juanita Merriman

8th January 2014

Self-help books: Are they helpful or should they just be left on the shelf?

With the new year comes many resolutions, with people hoping to steer their lives in different directions, make better decisions and feel happier. Traditionally it is this time of year which brings about a rise in self-help books.

An article by Viv Groskop in The Observer (29^th December 2013) describes how the popularity of self-help publications is set to grow exponentially into 2014. However, she explains that despite the success of the self-help industry there is evidence that “consumers are repeat buyers”… “which indicates [the self-help books] are not helping”. Groskop’s article carries a critical undertone towards the industry; beginning with “ ‘shelf-help’ promises to change your life” and continuing to describe the self-help industry as one which has developed under the guise of ‘intellectual credibility’. Her parting comment quotes Kathryn Schulz from New York magazine which concludes that in the last 1,600 years “we’ve made very little progress towards understanding our own inner workings” and therefore “[how] can self-help work if we have no idea how a self works?”

Groskop describes the broad and varied nature of the resources that are encompassed under the ‘self-help’ genre which certainly makes it harder to generalise about the overall success of the industry. However, the ignorance of Schulz’s comment further indicates that their opinion on the self-help industry may not be as accurate as would be suggested. Indeed, in a review of studies which have explored the impact of self-help, a different view has been formed, one which demonstrates positive outcomes for certain self-help interventions (Griffiths & Christensen, 2006).