Deepak, Phil and Oprah: A self-help paradox

By Suntosh Pillay

“Are you living your best life?” Oprah Winfrey likes to ask. Jennifer Niesslein asked herself this, took it quite seriously, made a list of areas in her life that needed improving, and began an ambitious two-year experiment — follow with devotion the self-help gurus and their advice. In her own book Practically Perfect (in every way), we join her misadventures through the world of self-help in a bid to discover a happier life, exposing what she calls the “uniquely American” phenomenon of trying to be perfect. Of course, there’s nothing unique or American about it.

Self-improvement books have been around for ages. Jesus, Krishna and Muhammad, in the Bible, Vedas and Qur’an, began the self-help era ages ago. Even Scientology’s founding writer, L Ron Hubbard, managed to sell a strange therapeutic “cure’ to the public in the 1950’s called Dianetics. His skill at writing science fiction novels probably weakened his credibility in mental health. At the time, a leading psychoanalyst, Rollo May, wrote in the New York Times: “Books like this do harm by their grandiose promises to troubled persons and by their oversimplification of human psychological problems”. May’s criticism of Hubbard’s poorly researched claims are perhaps a default criticism of a bulk of today’s self-help manuals and “Improve your life now!” DVDs and audio CDs — they build up people’s hopes, but may further shatter their self-esteem if expectations are not met. Anyone that faithfully reads such a book is, after all, probably in a difficult stage of their life.

But self-help sells. It’s a multibillion-dollar booming industry, with its own section in every book store and a popularised genre of our time. Dr Phil and Deepak Chopra are cult-like. Oprah’s Book Club is bursting with self-enlightenment guides. Motivational speaking is now a full-time career path that merely requires excessive self-branding and above-average oratory skills to kick start a lifetime of dishing out advice. “Empowerment” and “Self-awareness” are the buzzwords of the industry. We all want to be Rich Dad, not Poor Dad. We all want to know The Secret. We’re all scrambling to find our Zen. We all want to be Highly Effective People with all seven habits, and now the eight. Don’t sweat the small stuff, we’re told by Richard Carlson, because it probably won’t matter a year from now. Maybe he’s right — I mean come on, he sold 21-million copies of his book.

People don’t buy broken products. But aha — maybe that’s where the self-help business model is perversely genius: the product is never faulty, you are. The hidden message is that if it’s not working for you, you’re probably not doing it right — try harder, be patient, you’ll get there, just believe in your (lousy) self! And now, Psychological Science, an academic journal, published a study that says repeating positive statements about yourself may actually backfire, but only if those affirmations are inauthentic and fake. Dr Joanne Wood, the author, also warns against unresearched quick fixes.

Is it a never-ending story? A search for an indefinable moment where we can truly say “I am happy and content and this is enough for me?” But who gets there, really? Material evolution is about progress; spiritual evolution is about contentment. And yet, aren’t both about getting to some “next level”? That obsession with being better, the initial impetus for Niesslein’s experiment — isn’t that what underlies the driving force of life? And that’s the paradox, isn’t it? Self-help is about improvement and contentment, at the same time.

Suntosh Pillay is an intern clinical psychologist and independent writer.