Sham: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless
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- Synopsis
- Self-help: To millions of Americans it seems like a godsend. To many others it seems like a joke. But as investigative reporter Steve Salerno reveals in this groundbreaking book, it's neither- in fact it's much worse than a joke. Going deep inside the Self-Help and Actualization Movement (fittingly, the words form the acronym SHAM), Salerno offers the first serious exposé of this multibillion-dollar industry and the real damage it is doing- not just to its paying customers, but to all of American society. Based on the author's extensive reporting- and the inside look at the industry he got while working at a leading "lifestyle" publisher- SHAM shows how thinly credentialed "experts" now dispense advice on everything from mental health to relationships to diet to personal finance to business strategy. Americans spend upward of $8 billion every year on self-help programs and products. And those staggering financial costs are actually the least of our worries. Sham demonstrates how the self-help movement's core philosophies have infected virtually every aspect of American life- the home, the workplace, the schools, and more. And Salerno exposes the downside of being uplifted, showing how the "empowering" message that dominates self-help today proves just as damaging as the blame-shifting rhetoric of self-help's "Recovery" movement. Sham also reveals: * How self-help gurus conduct extensive market research to reach the same customers over and over- without ever helping them * The inside story on the most notorious gurus- from Dr. Phil to Dr. Laura, from Tony Robbins to John Gray * How your company might be wasting money on motivational speakers, "executive coaches," and other quick fixes that often hurt quality, productivity, and morale * How the Recovery movement has eradicated notions of personal responsibility by labeling just about anything- from drug abuse to "sex addiction" to shoplifting- a dysfunction or disease * How Americans blindly accept that twelve-step programs offer the only hope of treating addiction, when in fact these programs can do more harm than good * How the self-help movement inspired the disastrous emphasis on self-esteem in our schools * How self-help rhetoric has pushed people away from proven medical treatments by persuading them that they can cure themselves through sheer application of will. As Salerno shows, to describe self-help as a waste of time and money vastly understates its collateral damage. And with Sham, the self-help industry has finally been called to account for the damage it has done.
- Copyright:
- 2000
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Publisher Quality
- ISBN-13:
- 9780307238658
- Related ISBNs:
- 9781400054091
- Publisher:
- Crown
- Date of Addition:
- 09/19/19
- Copyrighted By:
- Crown
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
- English
- Has Image Descriptions:
- No
- Categories:
- Nonfiction, Self-Help, Business and Finance, Social Studies
- Submitted By:
- Bookshare Staff
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.
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- by Steve Salerno
- in Nonfiction
- in Self-Help
- in Business and Finance
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