November 01, 2004

Curious George: Self Help I'm taking a psychology class, and we have to compare some self help book/video/system with as much science as Psychology has to offer. So, does anyone have any self help they can recommend?

I'm specifically looking for anything on increasing your overall happiness, rather than something like weight loss (unless it's a "Lose Weight to be Happy" sort of thing). I'm also looking for something with humor potential in the analysis. Anyone know any particularly bad or unique types of self-help?

posted by Sandspider 19 years ago
  • If you're looking for humor, read Will Ferguson Generica (sometimes HappinessTM (no superscripts on MoFi?). The book asks what might happen if a self-help book actually worked. I don't know if you'd be able to use it, but it's worth a read in any case.
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  • I would not be opposed to something such as, say, Ann Coulter's How to be happy by killing liberals or something equally ridiculous, if any of you have been exposed to any books or sites like that. I was thinking of possibly doing something like Time Cube, but I don't think that's quite what I'm looking for.
  • He's a high-profile psychologist, but it's some crazy pop stuff, so how about Seligman's "Authentic Happiness?" There are more loopy questionnaires on that site than I have ever seen. To be fair, I haven't read the book, nor have I really bothered to learn much about it, but it seems pretty wonky to me. Seligman may be a big cheese, but it seems he's jumped the pop-psych shark here.
  • If you're interested in something a little off-beat, how about one of Scott Adams' books? Both The Joy of Work and The Dilbert Principle offer work-related self-help advice, sprinkled with Adams' well-thought-out (if sometimes wonky) thoughts on human nature and behavior. If you want something a little less unusual, I would recommend David Allen's Getting Things Done. I don't know if organizational help qualifies for your class assignment, but it's the only self-help book that's really helped me.
  • How about anything Dr.Phil says? Of course, "Dr." is just a stage name and his advice is "for entertainment purposes only."
  • Actually, uncleozzy, Authentic Happiness is backed by science, by and large. The questionnaires that you see there are the ones that social psychologists use to determine happiness, optimism, etc. Scary, huh?
  • Not sure if you're looking for specifically bad/flaky/unsupported "self help" or if you're looking for recommendations that you can compare to what your class is studying. If the latter, consider -- at least, read the introduction to -- this one: http://shop.store.yahoo.com/clickerpets/dontshootdog.html
  • Sandspider: Well, as much as any social psychology is backed by science, sure. (I've got a degree in psych, I'm allowed to poke fun!)
  • I found this book to be interesting in that it was a kind of 'self-help' book that did not present psychological issues in a atomised framework where social and political pressures don't exist. Vernon Coleman, Toxic stress : and the twentieth century blues, ( Barnstaple : Chilton Designs, 1991).
  • Exactly, uncleozzy. And Positive Psychology has it worse off than many, like Cognitive Psych. hank, I'm looking for more the former. Really, anything that I can use to make an entertaining and somewhat unusual presentation is what I'm going for. But I'll be looking through all the suggestions that I get, because who knows where inspiration will strike.