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Self-Help Guru Ratings

Sound advice and snake oil.

86 gurus rated so far. You can skip to the guru ratings if you want.

New in February 2008: Wayne Dyer, Eric Tyson, Jim Cramer, Doreen Virtue.

The self-help industry publishes hundreds of books each year. Most of them are terrible. We buy them anyway.

Ask yourself:

Do you think each of those books has anything new and useful to say?
If there was a “simple secret” to living your dreams, wouldn’t everyone be doing it?”
Are those books written to help you, or to sell?
Does anyone review those books for accuracy?

We do not need more self-help books. We have too many of them. What we need is better selection. That’s what this page is for.

My Criteria

It’s okay if you disagree with me.

Many people will be helped by writers I have rated poorly, and many will be unhelped by my favorite gurus. In fact, one of the earliest books to change my life for the better was Wild at Heart by John Eldredge, whom I have rated poorly!

But I think my ratings can help you. I will steer you to self-help gurus who:

explain methods that reliably help many people, according to scientific research.
are honest about themselves, the basis for their methods, and the comlexity of life.
give useful, how-to advice instead of wordy, abstract musings.
are easily readable.
are consistent, not self-contradictory.

Those are my criteria. As such, many good books will be rated poorly if they are too wordy or don’t give how-to advice. Sapolsky’s Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers is a great science book, but it doesn’t have much practical, how-to advice.

Based on those criteria, I give one of three ratings:

Bad: of little use, or even harmful.
Meh: decent, but not special.
Good: recommended.

Plenty of good writers get my “meh” rating. Their books are okay on first reading. But trust me: after reading 300+ self-help books (complete list here) that say mostly the same things, a “meh” book is as unimpressive as a “bad” one.

To focus on the diamonds in the rough, I kept my “good” rating for books that stand a head above the rest. You should start with the “good” writers that interest you, and only move on to “meh” writers if you need to. Do not read the “bad” gurus.

My problem with motivational material

We all use motivational material. We need motivation to do what we need to do. But most motivational books are bullshit.

They make big promises. They give you false hopes. They set you up for failure. They pull you forward without first pointing you in the right direction.

You know what I think is motivating? A book that gives you trustworthy advice about very specific things you can do to change.

Think about it. You read a clear, simple technique that can help you change. It’s specific and something you can really do. You think, Hey! I can do that! That makes sense! Now that is motivating.

And the good ones don’t give you false hopes. Or inactionable hopes. Just real hope.

Why you should trust science

Science isn’t perfect, but it’s more reliable than any other method we have to figure out how things work.

Lots of books claim to be scientific. Many are not. I did my best to compare each writer’s claims to the actual evidence. Of course, new evidence could arrive tomorrow that would overturn our current understanding of self-help. But we do the best with what we’ve got.

It seems silly to use a self-help method that contradicts the evidence because you claim “the evidence will come tomorrow.” If that’s your argument, you might as well do anything. Pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster; evidence might come in tomorrow!

Besides, you don’t need to use methods that have no evidence behind them. There are plenty of self-help methods for every problem that are supported by evidence.

Using unproven methods is at best a waste of time (because better methods are available). At worst, it’s harmful.

“But it works!”

I hear things like this all the time:

“I don’t understand how it works, but the witch doctor healed Kendal’s cold!”
“Emotional Freedom Techniques worked for me!”
“Once I realized my past-life experiences were causing me to drink, I could walk in freedom. I’ve been sober ever since!”

There are many reasons “alternative therapy” can seem to work.

We change all the time. Sometimes, people just get better. Even those with chronic diseases have “good weeks” and “bad weeks.” You can’t assume that whatever preceded an improvement actually caused it.

Imagine you have a bad cold. Somebody offers you an herbal remedy. He tells you it might take “a few days” to work. Sure enough, you are better in 3 days!This example from A Photon in the Darkness. Is the herbal remedy a miracle cure? If you think so, I’ve got some pills to sell you that will cure all your colds and headaches . . .

Then there’s the placebo effect.Some people say we should use the term “placebo response” instead of “placebo effect” because the placebo has no “effect.” But it often does. A placebo may work better than no medicine at all, fake or real. Besides, most people know the term “placebo effect.” Often, a sugar pill does just as much good as any “alternative medicine” (but not as much good as real medicine). Presumably, we think we’re taking medication, we expect to get better, and that positive expectation itself helps our body to heal.

The placebo doesn’t have to be a pill. Gary Craig claims you can cure bad emotions by tapping special “meridians” on the body to balance your “energy field.” Two studies showed some effect. Another study showed just as much effect no matter where you tap on the body. Probably, the improvement has more to do with physical touch—and the expectation to get better—than with meridians and energy fields.See Can We Really Tap Our Problems Away? We already know that touch does us a world of good.

Also, beware confirmation bias. We tend to remember things that “confirm” our beliefs, and forget things that challenge them. Some religious people pray for healing every time they get sick. Most of the time, they don’t get better right away. But sometimes they do get better with a speed that surprises even the doctors. That’s pretty memorable. Especially since it confirms their religious beliefs. They forget the 500 times they didn’t get better right away after praying. That can make prayer seem like it works.

There are other problems, too. That’s why we need controlled studies, not messy and biased guesswork.

I’m glad for anyone whose life is improved. But that doesn’t mean I can recommend unsound self-help methods.

“It worked for me! I don’t need a double-blind study!”

Sigh. Yes, yes you do. Maybe you’ll understand somebody else’s explanation better. Read How to Think Critically or Why Bogus Therapies Seem to Work.

Why do bad books get good reviews?

For the same reasons that crappy movies get good reviews. The self-help industry is a big business. Some reviewers have financial ties to the publisher. Reviewers who praise everything get sent lots of free books. Publishers market a book by getting the author on TV and courting Oprah.

Also, your friend might recommend a bad book because it made her feel good. Months later, she may be no better off. Often, she will recommend a book before she even tries what it says.

How many people who recommended Rich Dad, Poor Dad to their friends actually tried its illegal, unwise investing advice?

Why my reviews are so short

My book reviews are short for the same reasons that Piero Scaruffi’s music reviews are short:

Nearly all books are over-hyped and over-discussed.
With thousands of books and millions of internet pages describing them, readers don’t need more information but better selection.
As marketing and publishing costs have decreased, more crap is available.
Most books make no contribution to history or your life, and don’t demand surgical analysis.
One good self-help book is worth more than 50 mediocre books.

I have more to say about this in my review of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.

Categories of self-help

For this page, my definition of “self-help” is unfairly broad. The gurus listed here offer advice on success, happiness, simplicity, personal finance, investing, productivity, organization, health, business, relationships, spirituality, soulfulness, motivation, anxiety, addiction, parenting, thinking, and more.

I could have called this page “Advice Guru Ratings,” but that doesn’t mean anything to most people.