Author: Steve Salerno
Publisher: Crown
Year Published: 2005
Rating:
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Self-help is an $8.5 billion industry but is it doing anyone any good? In SHAM, Steve Salerno argues that there’s no proof that it has.

As a former self help publisher, Salerno found it odd that self help gurus do market research on potential buyers and that the most likely customers were people who bought a self help book in the past 18 months. After all, shouldn’t someone be expected to read a self help book and be cured? Why would they need to buy another book on the topic?

Self help books fall into two categories: “victimization” - because we are victims of our upbringing and genetics, we can’t be held responsible for our actions - and “empowerment” - if we only believe in ourselves, we can do anything. Because of these categories, Salerno argues that the self help industry is responsible for our beliefs that something is wrong with us.

What follows is a mishmash of anecdotes about the personal lives of big name self help gurus like Tony Robbins, Dr. Phil, Dr. Laura, and John Gray. He also takes swipes at the life coaching industry, alternative medicine, motivational speakers and even Suze Orman’s personal finance books. As I read the book, I found myself wondering just where the line was between “self help” and virtually any spiritual or non-fiction publication. By Salerno’s definition, it seems like any psychologist, spiritual leader or business exec who offers advice to the masses falls into the broad category of “self help.”

Which brings me to my first major issue of the book - with such a broad scope, how in the world can you prove scientifically that the self help industry is a sham? What would be the benchmarks of success? How would you conduct the experiment? In cognitive therapy, for instance, the psychologist and patient set milestones to achieve a particular result, but I have to wonder what the success rate of that industry as a whole is - and how that would even be an apples-to-apples comparison? Throw in alternative medicine, pseudo-science, spiritual healings and everything else, and you get a jumbled mess not a scientific study.

Salerno’s criticisms that self help gurus do market research and target past clients seems more like good business skills than sketchy behavior. First, the competition in the book industry is fierce - not just to get published but to actually get people to buy your book. If you don’t have a large enough target market, chances are, the publisher will pass. Second, it’s not just self help gurus but just about all businesses that look for repeat business from customers. It costs a lot less to sell a past customer more stuff than it does to acquire a customer. That’s just business economics. (And personally, I’m more likely to buy a second book from an author I like and respect - especially if I’m interested in the topic.)

That Salerno chides the self help industry for failing to cure its customers with one dose also seems silly to me and shows a complete lack of understanding for human psychology. First, he rightly addresses the issue that after reading a book or attending a seminar, you get a boost in motivation. But as time passes, that feeling fades. To get it back, you must engage with the material again and again.

I’m not sure why this is surprising. If all you had to do was listen to a lecture once and not complete any of the exercises or re-engage with the materials, all college students who actually attended their lectures would have 4.0s. Unfortunately, that’s not how most humans learn. We must review the material several times for our neural patterns to form long term memories. Alternatively, it’s not like one time behavior has much of an effect on us. We can’t go to the gym once, diet for a day, or attend a cognitive therapy session and expect miracles.

Then, there’s the question of who’s responsible for our learning - the guru or us? Salerno chides the industry for promoting victimization and then questions whether it’s the guru’s fault, rather than our own, if we don’t succeed. This seems horribly backwards to me.

For instance, let’s say I read The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama. (By Salerno’s standards, this would seem to be a self help title.) If I don’t walk away from the book a changed person and happy for life, is that the Dalai Lama’s fault or mine? Is it remotely believable that without any work whatsoever on my part other than reading the book, I should achieve a lifetime of happiness on par with Dalai Lama and if not, it’s because he’s a shoddy teacher out to take all my money (or perhaps his co-author, Howard Cutler, is)? Or that I failed in some way?

Salerno also takes issue with sports motivation, which completely baffled me since there are numerous scientific studies out there showing a connection between positive thinking and achieving results. He didn’t refer to any of them during his criticisms of coaching.

Finally, for a book that supposedly is a scientific look at self help, he didn’t spend much time analyzing what attracts people to the industry. If Salerno is to be believed, it’s because these gurus are such excellent sales people and prey on insecurities created by the self help movement over the last 50 years. He doesn’t provide any real evidence for this other than a handful of brief correlations like the divorce rate is higher or that the self help industry is growing significantly.

He also doesn’t mention other possible influences like people turning away from organized religion, people looking for spirituality in a secular world, that post modern culture has exposed us to new ideas, that the $550 billion global pharma industry spends billions to promote ‘cures’ and finance psychiatrists, the looming threat of terrorism, or that scientific advances like stem cell research, cloning, and artificial intelligence that might make us question our purpose in life and what it means to be human.

The book has lots of interesting trivia but not enough evidence to support its premises. If you want to know the dirt on Dr. Phil, Dr. Laura, and Tony Robbins, you’ll find it highly entertaining. But if you want a scientific look at the self help industry’s impact on our culture, look elsewhere.