Newsletter 7 - Self-Help Books Special Issue

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Tim LeBon

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Feb 24, 2008, 2:11:39 PM2/24/08

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This week there was a really interesting BBC TV programme on self-help books. In this edition of the Personal Develoment through Philosophy and Psychology Newsletter, we review this programme (which incidentally you can still download using BBC's I Player) . Alan Yentob, the presenter of the BBC programme, seemed to have learnt something from giving self-help books a chance. Maybe we all can. To help us all, I've produced a list of my current top ten personal development books, and also a brief guide to one of my favourites not mentioned by Yentob, Bertrand Russell's Conquest of Happiness.

BBC Programme on Self-Help Books

He came to mock, but ended up producing one of the best and balanced programmes on self-help books I've seen in a long time.

Alan Yentob, former Controller of BBC 1, gave us a glimpse of many of the self-help greats in The Secrets of Life, the latest programme in his Imagine series.

The programme begun with The Secret, a massive commercial success but an easy target for the sceptic. The "Law of Attraction" which underpins the book goes back a long way but is sufficiently New-Agey to get the "Are you Serious?" treatment from Yentob. "I can't help thinking that the easiest way to make money from self-help books seems to be to write one", he sneered.

Fortunately, though, Yentob wasn't the only voice we heard, and This Life writer Amy Jenkins
provided a balancing and very sane perspective in praise of self-help books.

Read more ...

Top Ten personal devlelopment classics

Whilst there are plenty of flakey self-help books out there, the very best personal development books contain wisdom delivered in language we can all understand. They can both be inspiring and insightful.

What is needed is a way to sort the wheat from the chaff. I've been a fan of the genre and been using them as part of my therapy and coaching work for quite some time. So which books have I and my clients found most helpful? Each year I update my personal top ten self-books - which books have I found most helpful in the last year.

The best self-help/personal development classics

My annual personal top ten (in brackets is position last year)

1. The Seven Habits of Highly effective People Stephen Covey (1)

2. Man's Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl (2)

3. The Feeling Good Handbook David Burns (8)

4. Overcoming Low Self-Esteem Melanie Fennell (5)

Read more ..

Bertrand Russell's Conquest of Happiness - a personal development classic

Bertrand Russell's Conquest of Happiness

Bertrand Russell's books were described by Time magazine as a modern substitute for the Bible. If this is so, the The Conquest of Happiness must be at the very centre of his works.

Make no mistake, this is no abstract philosophical treatise – it is a recipe for good living, written for the likes of you and me. Russell's work is based on two assumptions. First, happiness needs to be conquered. You can't expect to waltz through life reaping happiness without putting in some thought and effort. But – and this is why The Conquest of Happiness is essentially an optimistic book– if you do make this effort, you can, given average fortune, attain happiness.