Awaken the Power Within: In Defense of Self-Help - Softcover

Amao, Albert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0143132598 ISBN 13: 9780143132592

Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

The $12 billion self-help industry is under constant attack for pedaling false miracles to duped believers. But sociologist Albert Amao demonstrates that Americans eagerly support self-help books, seminars, and programs because, under the right conditions, these things work.

Sociologist Albert Amao analyzes the accuracy of self-help and positive-thinking claims in this groundbreaking--and wholly unexpected--exploration of what works, what doesn't, and why.

"Regarding my personal experience," Amao writes, "I can testify that positive thinking and positive action have worked wonderfully for me. Born in a poor Latin-American country into a very impoverished family with both parents practically illiterate, I was the oldest of five children. I started working when I was six years old, shining shoes and selling newspapers to help my family. Nobody then would have believed that I would be able to finish high school. Nevertheless, I was able to do it going to night school, which allowed me to be admitted at the San Marcos University in Lima to get my Ph.D. in sociology. All these things were possible because, when I was teenager, I had access to New Thought," or positive-thinking philosophy.

Contrary to the critics who blithely dismiss self-help methods, or the New Age gurus who sell it them as miracles, Amao--writing with sobriety, scholarship, and drawing on deep personal experience--explores the conditions under which self-help is authentic.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Albert Amao Soria is a graduate of the National University of San Marcos, in Lima, Peru. He holds a PhD in sociology, and is a social theorist and cultural critic. He lectures widely on metaphysical subjects and is a national speaker of the Theosophical Society in America. Mr. Amao has written on metaphysics, New Thought philosophy, and Hermetic Qabalah, and is the author of several books including Healing without Medicine, and The Dawning of the Golden Age of Aquarius. He is the founder of the Center for Spiritual Self-Development and is available for lectures upon request. Mr. Amao can be contacted by email at Stgermain777@gmail.com. For further information, visit http://www.albertamao.com.

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Chapter 1

Overview of the Self-Help Movement

Nowadays, there are many different self-help techniques and programs; each one has its own theories, beliefs, methods, and practitioners. The modern concept of self-help has come to be some assisted self-guided techniques, rather than self-reliance and self-improvement. The movement encompasses a wide variety of self-help programs, including books, videos, audiobooks, seminars, personal coaching, and support groups. Through these programs, the client supposedly learns certain techniques to better deal with life's problems, including methods of dieting, fitness exercises, stress management, achievement of excellence, acquiring wealth, improving relationship with one's partner, and so on.

Currently, there are hundreds of books on the market debunking and demeaning the self-help business in America; some of their authors postulate that some self-help methods make people helpless and codependent rather than benefit them. The fundamental impasse of modern self-help materials and programs is that they have become coaching businesses as they consider normal human problems to be dysfunctions and offer or sell sham solutions.

Why is this happening? In modern times, in a materialistic and consumerist society, mainstream religions are losing ground in providing spiritual meaning, emotional support, and significant experiential knowledge to their adherents. Here come the false preachers and "gurus" to fill the vacuum selling their "panacea" products to gullible people. Steven Starker, a sociologically minded scholar, and a psychologist by profession, posits that the "self-help book is a firm part of the fabric of American culture, too pervasive and influential to be ignored or lightly dismissed, and certainly worthy of investigation." Incidentally, one of the purposes of this work is to shed some light about this concern expressed by many social scientists.

During the last decades, several self-help programs have tried to fill this vacuum. However, most of them are based on a greed syndrome. This greed syndrome is defined as the natural instinct of humans to take advantage of their fellow humans. This condition of avarice seems to be a characteristic of human nature that goes back to the beginning of civilization. Precisely, one of the features of ancient religions was to set limits on the greed syndrome through the idea of moral judgment by a powerful deity. It can be said that all religions, in addition to setting moral rules for human behavior, are based on limiting the voracity of greediness of humans.

Starker, a professor of psychology at the Oregon Health Services University, wrote an excellent work in 1989 entitled Oracle at the Supermarket: The American Preoccupation with Self-Help Books. He deals with the history of self-help and provides one of the best analyses of self-help books available. It is deplorable that mainstream academia and scholarship have not given much attention to this work. Although many years have passed since its publication, it has only two reviews on Amazon.com. One reason for this could be the strange and unattractive title, Oracle at the Supermarket. The words "oracle" and "supermarket" do not match at all; one wonders what an oracle has to do with a supermarket and, in this particular case, with self-help. The key to understanding this word combination is that Starker uses the term "oracle" as a substitute for "self-help books" for the following reasons:

As is well known, the oracle of ancient Greek culture offered wisdom, knowledge, prophecy, and healing to questing pilgrims. I submit that these functions have been usurped, in America, by the self-help book, which provides inspiration, education, and hope to millions. . . . The wisdom of self-help is dispensed, today, not only at local libraries and bookstores, but even at suburban supermarkets. Readers are provided advice on diet, exercise, sex, divorce, religion, personal growth, and virtually all other aspects of living, often with step-by-step instructions.

Starker commences his book with the following words: "The quest for enlightenment is a ubiquitous and noble part of human culture, calling to mind images of ancient scrolls, arduous pilgrimages, blind soothsayers, bearded prophets, Indian gurus, encounters with the oracles of Delphi, and a certain forbidden, but inescapably tempting, apple." Starker's position is that self-help books are replacing spiritual guides, ministers, and practical professional assistance. The commercialized, fake literature of this field goes on to offer wisdom and enlightenment; thus, there is no need to seek them in foreign lands or from "enlightened gurus" as the self-help material offers them right here.

One interesting thing that Starker found in his research is that, of books published in the period of 1983-1984, approximately 3,700 titles begin with the words "How to." Among the titles were How to Achieve Security, Confidence, and Peace; How to Achieve Total Success; How to Avoid Stress Before It Kills You; How to Be a Better Parent; How to Be More Creative; How to Be Slimmer, Trimmer and Happier; and How to Beat Death.

In modern times, most "self-help" programs are in essence coaching devices; that is, the practitioner assumes the role of parent, priest, or advisor. These programs serve as palliatives or mental narcotics, creating codependency, which involves emotional or psychological reliance on the practitioner, much like an addiction.

The problem is that, if one takes away the psychological "help" for addicted people, one creates a vacuum, and the consequences could be worse than the original problem. It is believed that most self-help and motivational consumers are repeat customers who keep coming back whether the program worked for them or not, creating a sense of victimization. When the need is not met by a specific book or service, the seeker will resort to the next book or the next provider or practitioner, who will provide the answers, the comfort, the cure, the solution to his or her emotional or psychological ailments.

Regarding the therapeutic or cognitive component of these methods, it can be said that self-help and "positive thinking" have a psychological and cognitive therapy component inherent in them. Indeed, everything in life can be therapeutic: the advice of a friend, reading a book or a poem, walking in the forest, fishing, and so on. In my case, playing tennis is therapeutic: chasing the ball around, hitting the ball hard, screaming when I miss-hit a shot, expressing content when I make good passing shots, and so on; it is a great mechanism for releasing emotions and getting relief from stressful situations.

Some people turn for personal advice to a close friend or mentor, others to fortune-telling (tarot or astrology); if the dilemma is profound and existential, people search for "reliable and insightful knowledge." In other instances, the quest for an answer begins at the local library, bookstore, or New Age seminar or workshop, and the search ends with a practitioner who advertises his or her services in New Age magazines and local newspapers. Most of these ads appeal to people because they promote spiritual and metaphysical means of reaching wholeness. Interestingly, most of these practitioners have been in the same predicament as the seekers and are in no better position to coach them. Some of these self-help practitioners or coaches provide medical, psychological, financial, and spiritual advice without having the proper credentials.

In modern times, some use the label of "self-help" for manipulation and commercialization rather than for assisting those in need. Self-help critics have found many self-help claims to be misleading and incorrect. Paradoxically, the more people read this kind of literature, the more they think they need it. This can be properly...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0143132598
• ISBN 13: 9780143132592
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 288
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar