Talk:Self-help book

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They are all rubbish[edit]

I've looked at several and they are all rubbish. Dont waste your time reading them. Study or do something more objective and factual instead. They are just garbage cranked out by publishers because people want to better themselves. ( The Prince is worth reading, but most people would not call it a self-help book. )80.2.202.35 (talk) 19:06, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Um. Look up 'encyclopaedia' and 'factual' in the dictionary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.144.246.134 (talk) 18:33, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Many people gain valuable knowledge from such books that are writen by some very high profile people such as Nepolian Hill. He has sold millions of his title Think and Grow rich which in turn has helped many people including myself. So much so that I was motivated enough to find a collection of well writen titles in audio www.audiomotivator.com form that could help even those that may not be able to read or suffer from reading disorders or may be blind and have a problem in finding these titles in brail. I have a reading disorder so i can speak from experiance. Providing the matirial is well written and well spoken they are a massive benefit to those less fortunate than others. (Tuxeedo1 (talk) 22:17, 27 January 2009 (UTC))[reply]

last line[edit]

"You can purchase Self help books from many online book sites" should be removed. If you disagree, it should at least be changed to "self help books can be purchased from online book sites" Kanjo Kotr (talk) 14:25, 7 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]


More Facts should be listed in this section: Behind the self-help book explosion[edit]

In the PsyBlog-Understand Your Mind , Dr. Jeremy Dean states that "the dark side of hope is that claims about potential improvement can, and are, grossly exaggerated, in order to prise open our wallets. Similarly a bright and breezy approach to potential change may lead us to believe that changing ourselves is easy, when often it requires considerable, sometimes monumental, effort". [1]

This should be added because it explains the topic of this section in a simplified way. Maresha4 (talk) 07:00, 17 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Dean, Jeremy, "Is Modern Self-Help Just a Massive Money-Making Scam?", PsyBlog-Understand Your Mind, 2008

Characteristics[edit]

Self-help books may act as a placebo and thus appear to be an effective way to change an individual's way of thinking about their life and selves. This is even hinted by the title of Dr. Joe Dispenza's self-help book You Are the Placebo: Making Your Mind Matter. This section should be added in order to inform those interested in self-help books that this placebo effect is the psychology behind it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cellison7 (talkcontribs) 03:04, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Advice literature[edit]

Idk, whether 'Advice literature' deserves independent article or to expand present article it self is better as of now parking a useful ref here.

  • The Self-Help Compulsion: Searching for Advice in Modern Literature By Blum, Beth. New York
Columbia University Press 2020 xiv + 329 pp.

Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 15:12, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]