E-mail from John Curtis re: the self-help fraud

[Eldon]

I mostly agree with him. Check out his website.
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There was a time when the answers to life’s challenges were simple. We
learned to make our own decisions based on common sense, family values
and religion, and we learned good judgment from life experience and
through the sound advice of family and friends.

Now, however, Self-Help gurus have brainwashed us into believing that
they know what is best for us, our marriages and our families. These
self-proclaimed experts make millions while offering up their generic
advice without any solid evidence to support their claims.

The common sense once readily available to all of us has been
hijacked. Self-Help has evolved into a “quasi-religious” cult
following through the systematic commercialization of positive
psychology and sound mental health.

The Self-Help Movement has become the Self-Destruct Movement by
diminishing or destroying our ability to explore, interpret, assess,
create, judge, choose and evolve on our own. We have given up the
freedom to live life, and build healthy marriages and families based
on our unique history, values and life experience. Instead many
(desperately) search outside themselves for someone to tell them how
to be happy, what they should value and how they should act.

Being a “happier person” or having a “healthier family,” whatever that
means, are often the goals of consumers of Self-Help products. Yet
studies continue to show that to be happy and healthy is simple but
not necessarily easy. Few of us want to do the hard work necessary to
change, so we keep searching for an easier way offered by the latest
guru, sometimes with deadly consequences.

The Solution: A Return to our (Common) Senses! The best way out of
this learned “self-helplessness” is to go cold turkey. Stop watching
ALL Self-Help shows now, and quit reading any more Self-Help books, at
least until you have applied what you read in the last one.

Begin, instead, to reclaim your natural, God-given ability to think
for yourself. The common sense that was once readily available to all
of us is still there free of charge and waiting to be applied to just
about any challenge we might face in life… all you have to do is use
it.

John Curtis, Ph.D. is the founder of Americans Against Self-Help Fraud
- http://selfhelpfraud.com/