Self-Help Books—Do They Help? | February 27, 2007 | On the Couch with Dr. Gail SaltzSelf-Help Books—Do They Help?
On the Today show this morning, I spoke with one of the teachers of The Secret, the wildly selling book and DVD that has reached number one on the New York Times Best Sellers List. This is a testament to how badly everyone would like to believe that there is a solution to their suffering — better yet, a solution that requires you only to think to receive it. The truth is that positive thinking (part of what The Secret promotes) is a valuable tool and has been known about and written about for well over a century. Positive thinkers are more likely to work toward their goals, are more open to seeing possibilities as opportunities and have less stress (which is good for both the mind and the body). These results have been seen in reproducible studies.
But some self-help books promote ideas that are not only not helpful — they are potentially damaging. The Secret is, according to the author and the contributing teachers, “the law of attraction” which they say means that your mind sends out vibrations that will attract like vibrations. In other words, if you think it, you will get it.
I did not have the opportunity to see Dr. Saltz on the Today show, so I can only comment on what she has written on her blog and the many angry responses to it. Positive Thinking, in scientific behavioral terms, is called "self-talk." Our internal dialogue can have both proscriptive and prescriptive functions (in other words, our thoughts can both limit our possibilities and define what we see as potential actualities).
If you convince yourself that your efforts will be fruitless, that you are bound to fail, these internal thoughts will naturally increase your anxiety, make you "look" only for failure cues, and make you "miss" any potential success cues. Looking only for failure signs and ignoring success signs will make your interpretation of the world become a "self-fulfilling prophesy."
What self-talk does is focus our attention. If our focus of attention is filtered in such a way that we see only the possibilities of ridicule and humiliation, our performance is likely to suffer. This is not due to any magnetic, vibratory, or physical process. It is psychological. The same is true for positive thoughts. If our thoughts are unrealistically self-centered and egomaniacal, our distorted perceptions of what is possible will lead us to engage in behavior that is unlikely to be productive. So if I believe that I can become President of the United States, but have never taken a political science course, never served on any governmental committees, never participated in any political party meetings, and have no economic resources to wage a political campaign, I'm unlikely to succeed with even the most positive of thoughts and beliefs.
The other important issue that is not addressed is that success or failure is rarely determined by any one singular variable. Positive or negative thinking is one very important variable. But so is perseverance, willingness to take risks, opportunity, appropriate resources, behavioral skill, support from others, timing, and any number of other variables that are situational. In my book I call this "Strategic Behavior."
One interesting issue here is the difference between "willing" something to happen, and being "strategic" in defining what steps need to occur in order to make something desired happen. You need the "will," the plan or strategy to use that will, the resources, an accurate understanding of the variables influencing that which you want to influence, and the timing to make it all come together. Some of these variables are within our control, others are not.
When it comes to health, there is tremendous scientific evidence that our psychological perspective (positive or negative) greatly influences healing. There is also tremendous and growing evidence that spirituality and its deployment increases healing. However, that evidence does not suggest that we should disregard all of the other variables that influence healing (such as compliance with medical regime, engaging in healthy lifestyle choices, identifying the source of the ailment through collaboration with medical experts, having an appropriate healing environment, and using all known interventions to decrease the cause and symptoms of whatever ailment that afflicts us). Positive thinking should not be a secret. It is one, but only one, aspect of human growth and healing.
So the focus of the debate should shift from "does positive thinking work," to "how can I combine positive thinking with all my other resources to increase my chances of success."
