$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $

I may make a few enemies here among folks who perceive what I'm saying as an attack on contemporary religion, but I never quite understood why otherwise-intelligent human beings don't see through this whole "evangelical wealth-building" movement. After all, from a marketing standpoint, what better shtick could there be than to make people feel comfortable about their more venal inclinations--and yes, to even make them believe that they're doing the Lord's work in the bargain! Take a guy like Joel (Your Best Life Now) Osteen, who, on the heels of his book's phenomenal success, moved his Lakewood Church congregation into what used to be known as Compaq Center, heretofore the home of the Houston Rockets NBA team. Osteen, as portrayed in the New York Times article linked above, feels no qualms about his rapidly compounding fortune or the hedonistic nature of his overtures to his ever-burgeoning flock. Though he tells Times writer Ralph Blumenthal that he's "never done it for the money," he goes on to explain his success thusly: "I believe it's God rewarding you."

Now that sounds harmless enough on the surface. It even sounds, well, uplifting. And it's really nothing all that new. In more traditional religious outreaches, proponents of tithing (giving a tenth of your earnings to your church) long have argued that givers will be rewarded financially for their Christian charity. Which, to my mind, raises a whole other set of questions of the sort that devout types tell you "you're not supposed to ask"--like, say, If God is going to reward you for tithing by giving you back your money anyway, then why does He force you to go through the whole circuitous exercise as a way of funding your church? Why not just let people of good intentions keep the money they have and "cause" the church to get the money it needs by simply "making it so"? For that matter, if tithers truly believe that they're going to get their money back and then some, how much of a sacrifice is it for them to tithe in the first place? But I guess such inquiries are best left to RELIGIONblog.

My more immediate point here is the uneasy parallels alert readers will see to that oft-debunked Tommy Lasorda credo about how "the guy who wins is the guy who wants it the most." Osteen appears to be saying--and how can his remarks be read differently?--that if he (meaning Osteen, not God) is successful, it's because He (meaning God, not Osteen) is rewarding him (Osteen) for doing His (God's) work. This in turn also implies that if you, average Jill or Joe, aren't successful, it must be because God doesn't think you're worthy of it: You're not doing His work. This would seem to be an unflinching (and very un-Jesus-like) indictment of poor people everywhere. Wouldn't it?

The good preacher never troubles himself with such matters. Osteen is one of America's most tireless advocates of "a prosperous mindset" and seeking "the premier spot" in life's figurative parking lot. At the same time, he pointedly avoids--as Blumenthal writes--"the darker themes of sin, suffering and self-denial," which is to say, those unpleasantries long associated with religions in which parisioners are actually expected to meet certain standards of behavior and self-sacrifice. Because let's face it--who wants to attend a church where the pastor composes long lists of things you have to deny yourself or should beat yourself up about? God just wants you to have that premier parking spot! Just as God clearly wants you to keep buying Osteen's books.

Speaking of which, he (Osteen, not God) is working on a new one. He's putting it together with "some material I haven't used, stuff on relationships," he tells Blumenthal. (You wonder if, somewhere, Dr. Phil and John Gray are quaking in their secular boots.) The precise terms of the deal haven't been disclosed, but industry sources speculate that Osteen could walk away with more than the $10 million Bill Clinton got for his memoir. A very nice parking spot indeed.

As previously noted in SHAMblog, much the same could be said of Mark "Chicken Soup" Hansen and his growing stable of mainstream thinkalikes. By including the word enlightened in the subtitle of his books, and making regular rhetorical nods to the concept, Hansen and partner Robert Allen manage to remove the fundamental* tackiness from aspiring to be the next Donald Trump, bathing the shameless pursuit of riches in a philanthropic, quasi-spiritual glow.

* no pun intended.

Judging a hook by its cover?

In its continuing efforts to maximize sales of SHAM, my publisher has come up with a newly redesigned cover for the paperback version, due out in June. Here it is: Comparing this to the orginal, one can clearly see the changes that have been made, and also what my publisher, in its infinite wisdom, is out to accomplish in sales-hook terms:Apparently we're now going after that segment of the marketplace that abhors deep red but gets all weak-kneed over anything orange, especially when one also puts a blue-green background behind an egg....

How full is your glass?

I'd originally hoped to enrich SHAM with some incisive quotes from psychologist/author Martin Seligman, but at the last, he declined to participate in the project. This came as no great shock. "Marty"--known among his peers in rock-star-ish, one-name fashion*--may be as legendary for his oft-unapproachability as for his impact on postmodern psychotherapy. In any event, it's too bad it didn't work out. Giving greater coverage to "positive psychology"--the movement Seligman fathered, certainly in this country--might have mollified those critics of my book who shriek that "there has to be something worthwhile in all that stuff you're writing about...!"

In one sense, it's a shame that Seligman has so often been indiscriminately lumped together with "all that stuff" by armchair followers of the self-help scene. You could say he was a victim of his own success, anointed something of an ambivalent guru when his watershed work, Learned Optimism, became a smash bestseller--and a touchstone for those who dropped out of traditional psychotherapy after concluding that it wasn't reaching them, helping them, or even talking to them. (The book instantly gave Seligman the franchise in optimistic therapy and, for want of a more scholarly phrase, "the happiness movement.") Yet Marty Seligman is no Dr. Phil, gleefully spewing goofy down-home buzzwords and catch-phrases like "get real!" or "how's that workin' out for ya!" Seligman's guru-dom notwithstanding, he may in fact be the most respected figure in "serious" psychology of current vintage.

This is the point at which I must also admit that if I've given him short shrift, it's largely because I feel out of my element. I never thought that a whole lot of expertise was necessary to deconstruct, say, Dr. Laura; if I phoned a few credentialed notables (which I did), who basically confirmed my own impression (which they did), I felt I was on sufficiently solid ground to venture the kind of take I ventured in SHAM. Seligman is different. I'm not sure I'm qualified to expound on, or even intelligently assess, his theories and arguments, which mate elements of philosophy and standard clinical psychology to a "program for practical living," if you will. It's as if his ideal psychotherapist were equal parts Neitzsche and Jung, with maybe a pinch of Joy Browne thrown in for good measure.

Now, with all those caveats duly noted.... On the surface of it, I think Seligman's body of work represents the restrained approach to positive thought that's so notably lacking in popular self-help, Empowerment Division. At the risk of oversimplifying, I'd propose that Seligman is exhorting us (or, more to the point, exhorting his colleagues) to stop dwelling on what's wrong with us and instead concentrate on what's right with us. He is psychology's answer to songwriter Harold Arlen, tirelessly accentuating the positive; he is the foremost academic exponent of the upbeat side of that old conundrum about the glass being half full or half empty. Understand, now, that Seligman is not telling people to see the glass as completely full, which is where pop psychology goes off the rails. He's saying (again, to my read) that in a scenario where things are both bad and good, it is surely more humane, as well as more pragmatically expedient, to (a) emphasize the good, and (b) learn to make the most of the bad, rather than engaging in protracted hand-wringing over what's missing from our lives and how we came to this unfortunate state. (Unlike NLP or the more intellectually dishonest former sales-training regimens now reborn in the mainstream as "success training," Seligman's worldview does not define away failure or create psychic gambits by which you try to trick yourself into believing that all is possible...when it isn't.) It's a totally refocused lens on therapy, requiring a revamped lexicon as well as a revamped set of reinforcements and expectations.

It's also a wildly popular college course these days, hence the reason for this post. (Note to my former j-school students: Yes, I buried the lede.) While I don't think I have much quarrel with what Seligman has set out to accomplish in clinical settings, I do wonder whether reducing his approach (which is quite complex, if you get into his books) to a once-over-lightly college course almost makes it--well--a bit too SHAMy. Seligman** doesn't seem to think so; he says his goal has long been to build a bridge between "the Ivory Tower and Main Street." I urge you to follow the link in the first sentence of this paragraph, as well as those elsewhere in this post, and weigh in....

* others make comparisons to The Godfather: "If Marty wants to see you, he reaches out for you. You do not simply go to see him..."
** who, interestingly enough, describes himself as a "born pessimist."

Self-actualizing Oscar?

Interesting article on life coaching among the Tinseltown crowd in the other day's New York Times, which I offer here with this comment: Once again we have evidence that large segments of society are abandoning formal therapy (with credentialed therapists) in favor of entrusting their personal decision making to self-styled "experts" who may--or may not--offer some level of formal training and may--or may not--know what they're talking about. Credit for alerting me to the Times piece goes to SHAMblog regular Cal, who astutely points out that what these coaches are really teaching people reduces to "how to budget your time." And hey, maybe there is indeed some practical value in such counseling that you won't find in psychotherapy...though I do question (a) whether a sensate individual with an IQ above a daffodil's really needs a coach to help him find it, and (b) whether such counseling is cost-effective in the end anyway, given the lofty fees typically charged by the coaches themselves. (I'd have noticed the piece myself, by the way, had I not been so terribly busy eating hotdogs and pretzels while watching the Mets and Dodgers have at each other in Port St. Lucie's beautiful Tradition Field. Like they say, it's a tough job.... I like to regard it as Steve's self-help...)

Be back late tonight, and we'll make up for lost time in the next few days.

Greetings from cloud central.

On a spring training-related note... Getting lots of interesting feedback on the Barry Bonds piece, which has now been variously reprinted here and there. Apart from the accusation that I'm "endorsing steroids" (which I'm not, per se) the most common observation is one we've tackled in this blog--on and off, implicitly and explictly--many times: Exactly what is the "self"? That is, what makes you you, and how far should one go in one's effort to become "fully actualized"? Someone remind me to revisit this topic when I return from the non-sunshine state (at least since I've been here).

Holy serendipitous synchronicity!

As those of you who've read SHAM already know, I've been tracking the self-help movement, in its inglorious diversity, ever since I began writing for a (non) living back in 1982. You'd think that in that great a span of time--now coming up on the quarter-century mark (gulp)--I'd have heard and seen it all. And yet no sooner do I begin to think that way...than along comes someone like Joshua M. Zuchter, Empowerment Specialist. (That's not my label for him, but rather one he chooses for himself, right under his name at the top of his professional website.) Toronto-based Zuchter is among the new breed of life coaches/success trainers who, in the tradition of, say, Wayne Dyer, incorporate large doses of spirituality into their patter. But Zuchter takes things to a whole new level. I quote, here, from his promotional materials--and I find myself falling back once again on Dave Barry's pet line when I say no, I am not making this up.

"The system Joshua uses," says the marketing copy, "came to him in an epiphany. In an instant the entire system unfolded in his mind that explains creation and in essence synchronicity or what some call serendipity. It is a blending of ancient wisdom with modern day techniques and has since formed the foundation for his seminars and coaching sessions."

Explains creation? Came to him in an epiphany? And in "an instant," no less? Even Jerry Falwell never claimed to have his finger quite that close to God's pulse. Notice, too, the utter contempt for traditional training and/or pedagogy embodied in that line. The whole system unfolded in his mind in an instant. I guess that pretty much makes all of the past century's painstaking groundwork in psychology and human motivation outmoded and irrelevent, then, huh?

Moving past the buzzword blather-fest, Joshua, we learn, "refers to himself not just as a coach and international speaker, but as a researcher. He constantly studies...and refines old and new cutting edge techniques so that he may assist people in letting go of limiting thoughts, developing deeper awareness of who they are and ultimately helping them to discover deeper fulfillment and meaning than they ever have before."

But something doesn't quite add up here. Elsewhere on his site, Zuchter, unlike most New Age gurus, seems to be less about getting you to a place you've never been than about helping you recapture the magic of what you once were. "Do you often wish that you could be the 'old' you again?" he asks. "Do you sometimes worry that you don't know who you are anymore?... Have you tried to figure out how you lost the old you in the first place?"

Stop worrying! "Life can be magical again!" asserts Zuchter, who owns, all to himself, a bachelor's degree in psychology from The University of Western Ontario.*

So it's reasonable to ask: Which is it? Is he going to help people "discover deeper fulfillment and meaning than they ever have before"? (This implies that you have always been somewhat dissatisfied with your life.) Or is he going to show people how to rediscover "the old you," so that "life can be magical again!" (This implies that you knew true bliss once, but lost it.) I don't think the asnwer can be, "both." The two aims would seem to entail two altogether different sets of assumptions and methodologies. The fact that in different parts of his site Zuchter will tap-dance over to one side of the stage or the other suggests to me that he's simply out to cast as wide a net as possible, while still trying to sound nichey. It's akin to the approach our friend Phil McGraw employs on Love Smart, which he subtitled, Find the One You Want--Fix the One You Got. If you really think about it (and as several alert readers pointed out, at least before Amazon took down their reviews), that's two different books, folks.

Further confirmation of my suspicions: Highlighted among Zuchter's offerings is a "2 Day Playshop" titled "Transformation From the Mystical into the Practical." The program has been designed specifically to meet the needs of those who face financial challenges, or seek better health, or feel disconnected from their significant others, or aspire to "greater peace, direction, passion and meaning" in life. In other words, the program is designed specifically to meet the needs of--everybody. But what else would you really expect from a guy who wants prospective clients to know that he "has been referred to as the Tony Robbins meets Dr. Deepak Chopra of the 21st Century"? (Presumably he sees this as a plus.)

One more comment--and I grant you this is completely gratuitous and unfair, but I found it too amusing to resist. Zuchter says his corporate clients subscribe to the "1+1=11 Rule," which is his way of saying that when you do things right, the whole is more than the sum of the parts. Still, my first thought on reading the line was, "Remind me not let any of his clients work on my taxes."

-----------------------

The visitor-tracking stats for SHAMblog tell me that many of you have been following the blog faithfully each day, checking for new content.** More often than not it's there. For the next week, however, beginning tomorrow, I'll be in Florida, fulfilling a wish I've had for just about all of those same 24 years I've been writing: I'm going to take in the final week of baseball's spring training, traversing the state to catch games in various training venues. Technically this is for an assignment, which developed quickly on the heels of my controversial Barry Bonds piece for the L.A. Times. But for me, it falls under the heading, "labor of love." If I don't get a chance to post many new items between now and March 29, I hope you'll rejoin me again after the hiatus. And by all means, keep the comments coming. I'll be checking the blog whenever I can.

* And even that modest credential puts him one up on Dr. Laura, whose degree, as often noted here (as well as in SHAM), was in human physiology.
** And thank you for that. I try to keep the blog worthy of being read by an intelligent audience such as you.

Self. Service.

Went to church today.

It's the second time in two weeks. I'm "making an effort," as they say. The point here, however, is not to accost you with my journey in faith (or faithlessness), but rather to highlight two moments from today's (Episcopal*) service that are very much in keeping with the mandate of this blog. And even though in my media bookings I've consistently danced around the obvious parallels between religion and self-help, there's no dancing around what I heard today in church.

1. Father Michael's very first words were: "Almighty God, we know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves." It was the opening line of a reading, a humble plea for intercession from on-high.

To me, that's a terrible message to put out for general consumption, whether you're in church or not. I understand the intent: It is aimed at people who feel hopeless, lost, tempest-tossed, and therefore pray for God's assistance, a literal deus ex machina ending. I also understand that you can't judge a religious service, let alone a religion, based on one line plucked out of context. Still, no power in ourselves to help ourselves is pretty unambiguous. There is no way to read that (or hear it) as anything but an admission of defeat, and a bedrock-level need for some higher power to help you.** That's not what you'd call an empowering message. And though I'm no fan of today's utopian brand of empowerment, neither do I believe in reinforcing victimhood by telling people they're powerless. The truth is somewhere in the middle. In fact, I'm coming increasingly to believe that once you accept the reality of that middle ground, certain kinds of self-help may actually do some good. In particular, we'll be talking about Martin Seligman and his theory of "learned optimism" (also the title of his landmark 1991 book, now in reissue) a bit farther down the road.

Clearly there exists within us the capacity for change without divine intervention (change of some sort being the normal prerequisite in cases where people hope to escape a rut). I don't know how much of that change must be kick-started by external events and how much is possible internally, but people do change, and it's hard to conceive that God Himself plays a role in each case. (Some very famous atheists, including Madalyn Murray O'Hair, were raised in devout Christian households; I doubt that God had much of a personal hand in that transformation.) A determinist might argue that even the internal kind of change occurs not as a result of any conscious choice, but rather from the natural resolution of the body's own totally autonomous internal struggles. One might make the comparison to a computer that has spent some time working on an extraordinarily complex problem, then one day arrives at the result. The only difference is that the computer has no self-consciousness, no "meta" awareness of its own function. We do. Regardless...we can, and do, change.

2. Later, during his homily, Fr. Michael shared some highly personal reflections on his path to his current station in life. Though it's always quiet during services***, you could've heard a collection basket drop as he told the congregation about the pivotal crisis of his own spiritual journey, a crossroads from which there was no turning back: that long-ago day he weighed whether to stay with the Catholic priesthood, or leave it in order to marry Rita, the woman he had come to know and love.

He chose both.

I hasten to add, that's not how Fr. Michael put it in church today. But in effect, his solution was to find himself a somewhat altered religious state wherein he could remain in God's good graces...except now he could have sex.

I realize that probably sounds crude. And in fairness to Fr. Michael, he did spend some time at today's service recounting the analytical and spiritual process that led him to his fateful decision to abandon Catholicism. (I should also mention that Fr. Michael is one of the most genuinely kind-hearted human beings you'll ever meet, as is wife Rita. Two nicer people could not have found each other.) That doesn't change the fact that, when the dust settled.... Well, some might say it's a case of having your communion wafer and eating it too. Some might call Fr. Michael's explanation a self-serving rationalization. He calls it the Episcopal Church.

If Fr. Michael is reading this, I'd like him to know that I'm not trying to be disrespectful. Truly, I'm not. And believe me, I'm the last one entitled to throw stones at someone else's house (surely not the house belonging to a man of God). In fact, I'm going to end this post by applauding my pastor for what he did. You see, his own actions form a refutation of the words at the center of vignette 1 above. Fr. Michael changed. He redefined his personal reality, finding a different reality that worked for him. Did God enable him to do that? Doubtful. Certainly not the "Catholic God" he was then pledged to serve. No. Fr. Michael did it. He found the answers that made sense for him. He helped himself. Ergo, self-help. The real kind.

* Wags sometimes refer to the Episcopal Church as "Catholic lite: all the singing and psalming without the guilt..."
** And by the way, what happened to "God helps those who help themselves"?
*** Except for the occasional shrill gibberish of some toddler whose grinning parents think it's just so cute when little Adam or Muffy calls out in church (or in a restaurant, or at the movies, or...)

Consider it a SHAM-rock...

I'D LIKE TO wish a happy St. Patrick's Day to all. And, as a further adjunct to our discussion of self--and in further demonstration of my uncanny knack for turning any occasion, no matter how festive, into a solemn introspective ritual--I wonder how many of you define yourselves by your ethnic/racial/religious heritages and roots? And if indeed you take pride in such backgrounds...well, I'd like to know why. I'd like to know what it is that you feel your heritages really have to do with you as an individual. Or maybe--more to the point--I'd like to know what they should have to do with you, in your view. Why take pride in our forebears? Why groom our kids to be chained in some way to their ethnicities and the like? Instead of, say, encouraging them to find their own paths as blank slates, of a sort?

I've told this story before on this blog, but I am of Italian descent (or maybe Italian dissent would be the better spelling, given what follows), and when I was still very young, my father would try to stoke my ethnic pride by telling me all these laudatory stories about DiMaggio and DaVinci. Even then, I recall thinking, But Dad, if I want to take credit for DiMaggio and DaVinci, don't I also have to take the blame for Capone and Luciano? I guess I always felt it was best to be judged on one's own merits.

Nonetheless, I shall be lifting a glass of green beer and eating corned beef before the day is done. I exhort you to do likewise. And if you attend office parties or what-not, please get your selves home safely.

Let Barry (Bonds) be?

In postscript to our discussion of self--what it is, how much you can change it and still be you, etc.--I offer my take on Barry Bonds, from today's Los Angeles Times. As many of you will know, Barry's critics say, and evidence in a hot new book seems to confirm, that his pursuit of baseball's immortal home run records has been drenched in massive amounts of steroids. I offer this column with no further comment except, again, to invite your own comments, yea or nay, in this blog.

Regardless of one's feelings on steroids (if you have any) or baseball (ditto) or "cheating to win" (I could write another whole essay about the all-too-convenient distinctions we draw there), the irony is irresistible, isn't it? Amid the endless sturm and drung about so-called self-help--much of which is just a lot of talk, and has no transformational effect whatsoever--here's a guy who really did actualize: He changed himself, somehow or another, into something different from what he used to be, and conquered worlds along the way. And what do we do? We crucify him for it.

Professor, help thyself.

In Chapter 1 of SHAM, I point out that "self-help," as a concept, was not always the formless, touchy-feely babble-fest it is today. It has a rich, centuries-old tradition of usage, in the realms of law and mental health in particular, to describe actions that people or institutions could take on their own without turning to professionals for guidance or formal approval. Note the emphasis on actions: We're talking here about undertaking a specific remedy, not just thinking or talking about the problem in general terms. The example I use in the book is the bank's right to simply show up in your driveway and repossess your car without going to court. A lot of consumers don't realize that this so-called "self-help clause" is buried in the contract language of most of today's auto loans; consumers mistakenly think that if they don't pay on time, the bank must nonetheless go before a judge to prove they haven't paid, then get a court order that officially permits it to hire a marshal or some other badge-wearing functionary to retrieve the car. Uh-uh. If he wants, Mr. BankAmerica (or, perhaps, those marauding Capital One huns) can come to your house personally and ask for your keys...or just take the car right off the street in front of your house, if that's where the bank finds it. Once you sign the contract with that self-help clause in it, the burden of proof shifts to you to go to court, later, and document that you did indeed pay on time.

In any case, today's post concerns a magazine that, on its surface, strikes me as much more true to such origins than most self-help fare. Adjunct Advocate, rather quietly published since 1992 by P.D. Lesko, chronicles and seeks to combat the travails and indignities of adjunct-faculty life. Having been an adjunct professor (of English/writing, as was Lesko, who is a Ms.), I can tell you that she frames things well. To adjunct is to undertake a low-paying life of virtual campus anonymity where the contributions you've made out in the "real world"* are considered largely irrelevant**, if not vaguely suspect (because, after all, college is a place where you're supposed to ponder life's timeless mysteries, not actually put your developing cognitive skills to practical use.... Come to think of it, college can be a lot like today's self-help). I found this pseudo-intellectual reverse snobbery to be especially severe in writing disciplines, where the professors who prided themselves on their pondering, and hoped to inculcate that same outlook in students, were eternally scornful of those of us who not only--perish the thought!--made money from writing, but even regarded writing as a trade, rather than a divine calling. Further, God help you if the money you made was from articles that appeared in popular consumer magazines like Sports Illustrated or, horror of all possible horrors, Playboy. I've written for both, of course, as well as many others with (dread) "mainstream appeal."

But enough of Steve's Ongoing Pique. I mention all this because it's my sense that a lot of SHAMblog regulars have roots leading back to college or writing or both. And I know for a fact that we have some part-time faculty members among the faithful. You might consider checking out Lesko's website, which is a fairly ambitious endeavor. From what I can see, along with a certain amount of "emotional support," she provides specific tactics for getting what you need from the institution that once thought you were worth hiring....

* this is a link to a pdf of an article in The Writer , "10 things college writing classes don't teach you about the real world." I recommend it. Which stands to reason, since I wrote it.
** even though, ironically, they're the very credentials that motivated the college to bring you onboard in the first place.

Yogi Berra was 100 percent wrong.*

If I hear one more sportscaster tell me that "success in [pitching, hitting, football, ice-skating, tiddlywinks, serial killing] is 90 percent mental," I'm going to "go mental" myself. I heard it ad nauseam this weekend: from Philadelphia Phillies' broadcaster Larry Anderson, commenting on a Phils' pitching prospect; from former Dodger star Eric Karros during his narration of the World Baseball Classic; from somebody doing color on an NBA game I happened upon as I was looking for something to watch. (You can't even escape this crap when you're innocently toggling back and forth between channels!)

Let's get things straight here and now: Mental is physical. They are one and the same, or at least, I defy anyone to show me compelling scientific evidence to the contrary.

(NOTE: I could litter this post with links and parenthetical documentation if I so chose. But really, this is a case where it's best for you to do your own research, and if you feel you can refute what I'm saying here, as Mr. Bush likes to say, bring it on...)

Here's a newsflash: The brain is part of the body. Nonetheless, this belief in the "mental game" of sports tends to be strongest among people who argue for a quasi-spiritual, almost magical component to thought and human awareness. It feeds into that whole Empowerment subtext about how the body responds to the will--that nothing is unachievable to people who "truly believe."

In truth, based on all current knowledge, the effect of thought on physical performance, and vice versa, appears to be a straight-line function of what transpires automatically among the 100 billion or so neurons in the average brain that trade electro-chemical impulses back and forth at 200mph. A typical neuron communicates with as many 10,000 other neurons, muscle cells, etc., over various synaptical media. These processes hum along to their own inscrutable rhythms (and totally beneath the "user's" radar: When was the last time you felt a little something on the left side of your head and thought, "Hmmmm, feels like a bit of a hang-up at Synapse No. 64,558..."?) We don't want to get too deep into matters of determinism here; we'll tackle that extensively at some future point. For now, suffice it to say that each new advance in neurological science points increasingly to the biochemical inevitability of any given brain impulse...which is to say, things "up there" happen in a predictable** way, following each given brain's own wiring diagram and programming, if you will. Ergo, the brain is self-governing. It makes its own decisions on its own clock. As is the case with the physical reflexes doctors check for with that little mallet, there are specific neurons that, when "poked," produce an inevitable reflex. (This is literally true: By poking certain areas of the brain, neurological researchers have succeeded at causing subjects to talk in babble, kick their legs, and even get erections. No further comment there.)

Which means that the thoughts and feelings you have are, in all likelihood, the result of a purely physical process over which you have zero control.

So yes, I "know what people mean" when they talk about the "mental game," and no, I'm not trying to be a nitpicker or a sophist. It's just that the people who talk about such things are wrong in a way that could not be more fundamental to human existence. The distinction they're drawing is invalid.

And yet that fallacious belief has important, all-pervading implications. For one thing, it implies that the so-called "mental game" of sports is far more malleable than the physical game. That, in turn, implies blame: i.e., "Hey, with your physical tools, you shouldn't let your head get in the way of your performance!" But if you don't have the proper mental outlook, you don't have the physical tools. A player who has been labeled a "head case" has a physical problem that manifests itself in erratic behavior and/or performance. A player who "chokes" is doing it in response to a physical breakdown somewhere in his head. Physiologically speaking, there is no difference between the pitcher who can't throw hard enough to get batters out and the pitcher who throws 95 mph but "lacks confidence" in his fastball and therefore can't get batters out. A lack of confidence is a physical problem relating to something in brain circuitry/chemistry. Hence, both pitchers have physical problems; they just manifest themselves in different ways.

This does not mean that all is hopeless (the comeback I usually hear when I make this case). Just as muscles can be trained to perform better, the mind can be trained to perform better(though we are not yet anywhere near as good at understanding the mechanism of that process as we are in dealing with muscle conditioning). Sometimes the mind can "decide on its own" that it's time to change--once those neurons and impulses make that event unavoidable.

So, Larry, Eric and Yogi, baseball--any sport; every sport--is 100 percent physical. That's all there is to it.

* Arguably Mr. Malaprop's most famous saying: "Baseball is 90 percent mental; the other half is physical."
** predictable within the closed system of the brain itself, that is; not always consciously predictable to you, the "owner."

One reason why God is HIS success.

Browsing the remainders rack at Walmart today, I came across a book whose title caught my eye and held it: God Is My Success: Transforming Adversity Into Your Destiny, by Larry Julian. Now, if I were in a more churlish mood, I could use Julian's book as the launching point for a protracted discussion of what is, in my estimation, one of the smarmier developments in self-help*: that whole "Christian success" movement, with its attempt to capitalize on the Fundamentalism that has taken hold of America in recent years. But I'm writing this on a Sunday, the most inappropriate day for such cynical discourse. Besides, I'm less interested in Julian's book as a whole than I am in the second half of his title

The first two definitions for the word destiny on Dictionary.com are as follows:

1. The inevitable or necessary fate to which a particular person or thing is destined; one's lot.
2. A predetermined course of events considered as something beyond human power or control.

Point being, your destiny--being your destiny--is immutable. Neither "adversity" nor anything else can be "transformed" into your destiny, since your destiny is and shall remain what it has always been since the day you were born (and, many would argue, much, much farther back than that). Destiny cannot be altered; if it could, it would not be your destiny. Now, it could just be that part of your destiny was to read Julian's book (which of course means that his destiny was to write it), as a result of which your adversity will be transformed into something else. But the something else it's being transformed into was your destiny all along; i.e., your destiny already considered the fact that you were destined to read Julian's book about "transforming your destiny" (and if we continue in this vein, we'll soon devolve into one of those endless "butterfly effect"/The Terminator regressions that gives you chills at night and calls for the consumption of an adult beverage in order to calm you down enough to sleep....)

Understand: I'm not saying that Julian's book can't have any effect on your life. (Let me emphasize that I haven't read the book, so I'm not commenting specifically on its contents.) He simply can't change your destiny. No way, no how.

What's more, I submit that Julian realizes this. If we were to ask him about it, I’m sure he'd find some intriguing, perhaps even satisfying way of amplifying on his title and explaining away the apparent contradiction. "Well, you know, I didn't mean it literally. What I'm trying to say is...." (For all I know, he says that right in the book.) That's not the point. The point is that he put that line on the cover because it's just such a damn appealing thought: the notion that you can somehow change what life had in the cards for you. For marketing reasons, he put something on the cover of his book that cannot, by definition, be true.

Here's a simpler way of saying that: HE LIED. And this, from a man touting God as the answer to secular salvation.

Interestingly, in postscript, Larry Julian is from Minneapolis. Wonder if he knows Dr. Marilyn R. Barry. Hell, I wonder if he is Dr. Marilyn R. Barry.

* and, really, society as a whole. I'm sure you've noticed the proliferation of "fish" symbols on businesses ranging from mortgage companies to your local sewage-disposal firm.

This may explain a thing or two. Or ten. Or...

Not sure why it never occurred to me to check this before, but Amazon lists no fewer than 37 individual "Dr. Marilyn Barry"s in its "people" directory, almost all of which are from Minneapolis, MN, and each and every one of which, astonishingly, carries its own discrete "real name" (!!) reviewer identity. (There are also five other "Marilyn Barry"s who may or may not be our "Marilyn Barry," so I'm not counting them as part of the mix for now.) Inasmuch as I tend to doubt that 37 separate "Dr. Marilyn Barry"s just happened to settle in Minneapolis, MN--especially when not one of them has a listed phone--I'm left wondering who or what this person is, why he or she felt such subterfuge was necessary, and what is the precise relationship of all this to our friend Dr. Phil McGraw. ("Barry" apparently was reviewing books before we started tracking his/her/its efforts here on SHAMblog, but never with the single-minded vengeance shown re Love Smart.)

So...

Hey! Dr. Marilyn Barry of Minneapolis...if you're out there...please get in touch. We'd love to hear your story...

Would you buy a car--or a book--from this man?*

The new No. 1 book on Amazon, as of late yesterday*, was something called Life's Missing Instruction Manual: The Guidebook You Should Have Been Given at Birth. If that sounds vaguely familiar, it's because it echoes the title of a (pretty good) book that has ridden atop the best-seller lists for over a year now--You: The Owner's Manual.

This tactic is nothing new for the book's author, an engaging character and viral marketing guru by the name of Joe Vitale, who recently has made something of a career out of producing--and tirelessly promoting--books that are, shall we say, derivative. Indeed, it's hard to resist the notion that Vitale conceived his latest best-seller with the following recipe in mind: Take the marketing hook of a book that already published to wild success, season with the pointed religiosity of two other recent bestsellers (Your Best Life Now and The Purpose-Driven Life), throw in some generic cosmic blather (inspired, perhaps, by Sylvia Browne or Marianne Williamson), and VOILA!--a perfect entry in the burgeoning self-help sub-category of "holistic/successful/spiritually enriched living." His previous best-seller, The Attractor Factor, appeared on the heels of several other self-help books and/or programs that variously alluded to the "laws of attraction" or "rules of attraction." That offering owns the distinction of once having knocked a Harry Potter book out of Amazon's No. 1 slot (reportedly after Vitale offered "ethical bribes," as he called them, to induce people to order it). Vitale unashamedly admits to being president of a company called Hypnotic Marketing, Inc.

In his current book, Vitale proposes to offer "big wisdom and little-known secrets for living a better life." Like so many of the gurus in this self-help niche, Vitale subscribes to the Promise Readers Everything (Even Things That Contradict Each Other) And Hope They Don't Notice school of motivational enlightenment. For example, he vows to teach readers, simultaneously, how to (a) "create their own blueprint for success" and (b) "work as a team." Granted, those two goals are not, strictly speaking, incompatible. But the degree of finesse required to embrace and, especially, implement both goals is not something you could hope to find in a simplistic book like Vitale's. Among other promises: Readers will learn to "be themselves and like it," "lead a good and moral life," and "accept their mistakes and move on." I defy anyone short of Socrates to resolve all three of those stated benefits into the same action plan without endlessly qualifying, parsing language, or backtracking on something you said earlier.

I've said it dozens of times and I say it again here: If you're just looking for a quick jolt of formless inspiration that fades as fast as the winter sun, then order the book. But if you actually expect life-transforming wisdom--come on, folks. You know better than that. The person most likely to profit off this "guidebook" is Vitale himself.

* Still No. 4 at this writing.
** Much of this post appears as also as a review of the book...if Amazon leaves it up, that is.

Less bullish* on "Barry."

I find it amusing that no sooner do we make the observation, here, about the curious and implausible popularity of the (latest) "Marilyn A. Barry" review, as measured in feedback votes, than the numbers change. This morning, the "Barry" review has 17 feedback votes, 12 of which deem it "helpful." The other day, you'll recall, the "helpful" ratio was 11 out of 12. Which means that either (a) after managing to please just about everyone, the "Barry" review suddenly and unaccountably has left 4 out of the past 5 readers cold,** or (b) whoever's running that show at Amazon is monitoring this blog and has decided not to climb quite so far out on "Barry's" limb.

Incidentally, my stats-tracking software (as well as email routed through my business web site, www.JournalismPro.com) indicates that we've attracted more visitors over the past week; they may wonder "what the heck is he talking about?" when I write so offhandedly about "the 'Barry' review." For a complete background on "Dr. Marilyn A. Barry" and The Strange Case of Love Smart as a whole, follow this link and simply read forward from my post of December 10, 2005. Somewhat incredibly, even to me, you'll find some two dozen separate Love Smart entries between then and now.

* Or a similarly spelled word.
** I realize it's possible that a few faithful SHAMbloggers went to the Love Smart page after reading the other day's post, and gave the review a thumbs-down. I'd like to hear back from anyone who actually did that.

Of money, memoirs...and misogyny?

Stumbled across an interesting book in my travels yesterday. It's called Money, A Memoir, by career publishing executive and "lipstick feminist," as one might call her, Liz Perle. The reason it's interesting, aside from the writing itself, which is pretty good, is that neither the denizens of publishing nor most reviewers quite know how to bracket the book. Perle, you see, is being literal, rather than ironic or playful, in her title. Publishers Weekly called the book a "sociological study-cum-memoir." Some have made note of the book's strong self-help overtones, which it clearly has. Others--while not necessarily disputing Perle's basic arguments--have greeted her book coolly if not resentfully, implying that the author is a traitor to the cause of feminism and gender equality.

Yes, Money, A Memoir has angered its share of women, especially those who've worked hard to be taken seriously in their professional lives; hell, for all I know, this post may anger a few women. That's because Perle argues that whatever women have achieved in recent decades, their "relationship with money" remains naive and, for want of a better word, "girlie." They still don't know how to manage it; they still feel compelled to deceive their husbands about how much of it they spend; they still rely on men ("white knights") to swoop in and pick up the pieces when they stumble; they still indulge in "retail therapy," a phrase that probably doesn't require explanation but basically means that women shop as a form of escapism/fantasy. The latter sounds like no big news flash, but Perle argues that women do this even when they can't afford to, thus not only reinforcing all those patronizing stereotypes but also funding all sorts of frilly industries that keep the vicious cycle humming along. She contends that even a woman weathering a tough budgetary crisis will foolishly go to Victoria's Secret or some pricy shoestore and buy herself something she can't afford in order to "make herself feel better." (Perle supports such contentions with vignettes from her own life, as well as from "almost every woman" she knows.) In essence, she's saying, women may have made great strides, but for most of them it remains really important to make those strides in cute designer shoes. And then lie to men about what they paid for them, thus affirming their embarrassment, subservience, and basic insecurity about their female tendencies.

Despite all of the success she has achieved in her own right, Perle writes, "there's still that other part of me--the one that wants to reserve the option of depending on someone else." Or, as her book's dust jacket puts it, Perle "long ago, and not entirely consciously...made a quiet contract with cash: she would do what it took to get it--work hard, marry right--but she didn’t want to have to think about it too much...." Or, as PW put it: "In spite of women's supposedly massive buying power and growing presence in Fortune 500 boardrooms, many women are still awfully old-fashioned when it comes to cash."

So--women readers--are you angry yet?

Janice P. Nimura sure seems to be. Writing (originally) in the Los Angeles Times, Nimura asserts that regardless of the merit of Perle's thesis, "too much of her argument moves in a direction many readers won't go." Even after conceding that the "statistics may bear [Perle] out," Nimura writes that for readers who either don't share Perle's inclinations or refuse to admit to same, "this book will infuriate rather than elighten."

Money, A Memoir is holding its own in the marketplace, so perhaps it hasn't infuriated quite as many readers as Nimura thought it would. And as even Nimura concedes, Perle may well have the numbers on her side.

* More than half of all female baby boomers have less than $10,000 accrued in a pension or 401(k) plan.
* Due to inadequate savings, the average woman born between 1946 and 1964 will likely be in the workforce until she is 74.
* Perhaps most chillingly, at least a third of women now ages 35 to 55 years old will be impoverished by age 70.*

Still, the lesson here, again, is that self-help consumers--largely women--don't want to hear what they don't want to hear. Perle's book and the sometimes angry reaction to it prove the oft-made SHAMblog point that self-help must be packaged a certain way or else people won't take to it. As faithful readers of this blog are aware, one of my chief gripes with the self-help movement is the way it distorts (or ignores) provable facts and observable reality. SHAM's message to the rest of us is clear: "If we don't like what you're telling us about life, we won't listen to you...even if your evidence is overwhelming."

This helps explain why, even in settings and/or manifestations where self-help might actually do some good, it ends up shooting itself in the foot. To a greater or lesser degree, the self-help guru feels compelled to pander to his audience: What followers ought to hear palls before the guru's knowledge of what they want to hear. Even Dr. Phil, for all his so-called "tough love" message to women, is not going to say things that flat-out insult or alienate them in any meaningful way.

Though Perle's book, being a memoir, might sneak in under the radar a bit more easily than if it were a straighforward nonfiction expose of a subject (a la, say, SHAM), reviewers with a preconceived agenda, like Nimura, are going to attack it regardless--just as feminists attacked those studies a few years ago that suggested that kids in daycare develop behaviorial maladjustments at a far greater rate than kids with stay-at-home moms. It didn't matter to feminists whether or not the studies were valid (and in fact, subsequent studies have cast doubt on the validity of those studies). From the feminist point of view, studies that were skeptical of daycare, or anything else that might limit a woman's options, couldn't be valid. They couldn't be allowed to be valid. By definition. Regardless of merit.

Tell me: How and when did that become the standard way of dealing with new information, particularly the unwelcome kind, in American life? Even in all my research for SHAM, I never found a satisfying answer to that. And I'd really like to know.

* I did not indepedently verify these figures, but rather, took the author at her word.

LOVE SMART UPDATE, midnight, March 8. Well, the cutting "Cindy Brock" review got its one week in the "spotlight" and now is gone, gone, gone. "Barbara Rose" is once more all alone in that elite position, "Marilyn Barry" once more owns the No. 1 position among regular reader reviews, and all has been set right in the charmed world of Dr. Phil McGraw....

b-a-a-a-a-a-a-a...

Bear with me because I'm going to be asking some odd questions--and yet they're questions that, really, could not be more central to the very idea of self-help.

For starters: What is the self? Who are you? And what makes you who and what you are?

At first blush this might seem like one of those old "if a tree falls in the forest..." chestnuts from Philosophy 101. We could in fact follow all sorts of metaphysical threads here--and we'll tug at a few of them before we're done. But I'm more interested right now in approaching the question literally: What is the literal you of you?

The launching point for this discussion is a case now much in the news--that of 71-year-old Lily McBeth, who's seeking to retain the job she has held as a substitute teacher in a small New Jersey school district for the past five years. Complicating matters is that to this point, the kids in the Jersey school district have known Lily McBeth as William McBeth, the name s/he was given at birth, and the person s/he remained until a year ago; that's when William underwent the gender reassignment surgery that yielded Lilly. Though in her former life as a man McBeth was married and fathered three children, s/he says--like so many transsexuals--that s/he always knew she "was a woman under the skin."

Hence, my questions, above. Let me be more specific here: What defines the essential you of you? What are the limits--if any--in deciding how different you want to be from what you were to start with? And when--if ever--do you stop being "you"? Or, in the end, do you remain you, no matter how far you stray from what you used to be?

Airy as it may sound, these questions and related ones are being confronted and debated hotly not just in New Jersey school districts, but in many different forums, in many different ways, as we speak. Moreover, a closer look at some of those debates reveals that the lines we draw between "you" and "not you" are arbitrary and inexact. What say we look at just one of those areas: baseball, and its steroid controversy. Major League Baseball forbids players to take steroids, partly because they're deemed unhealthy. But I'm not sure that's truly the "operative" part of the argument--at least to baseball purists. The purists believe that steroids are unnatural and thus (a) give a player an unfair advantage over his contemporaries and, perhaps more important, (b) enable him to mount an artificially enhanced challenge to some of the sport's sacred records. Barry Bonds' angriest critics have suggested that if the long-running steroid allegations against him are ever proven, his 2001 single-season homerun record of 73 should be wiped out. They also contend that if Bonds breaks Hank Aaron's career homerun record (755) while still under a steroid cloud, that achievement should carry an "asterisk," identifying it as tainted.

All well and good. Polls routinely confirm that most fans resent the black eye that steroids have given today's game of baseball, and believe that MLB needs to take a tougher stance on policing the abuse of same. But--just for the sake of argument--what about other types of "enhancements"? What about, say, Tommy John surgery? In Sandy Koufax's era, an injury to a pitcher's throwing elbow was career-ending. Today the player goes in for an hour of reconstructive surgery on his damaged wing (which involves rearranging body parts, or even, in some newer slants on the surgery, using synthetic materials), rehabs for maybe a year, and voila!--perhaps a decade instantly added to a player's career. Doesn't allowing a player to have an extra decade of useful elbow life allow him to mount an artificial threat on baseball's sacred records? Especially when you consider that pitchers often say they throw harder after the surgery than they did with their original-equipment arm. Reliever Billy Koch, who pre-surgery threw in the quite-fast-enough-thank-you upper 90s, was unofficially clocked as high as an astonishing 108 afterwards.

Are pitchers like Koch the same players they were before? Or have they become something else?

Or what about knees, hips and other joints that, through the magic of advancing medical technology, become wholly or partly artificial? Is putting "space age materials" into a joint all that different from putting--at some future point--a computer chip into our heads or nervous systems or other critical systems? You really think so? Tell me why.

For that matter, what about Lasik and other high-tech vision enhancements? Slugger Ted Williams, widely considered the best pure hitter who ever lived (and thus the prototype for Roy Hobbs in The Natural), also was legendary for his documented 20/10 vision. Today that same visual acuity is achievable to just about any athlete willing to have an ocular surgeon cut that little flap in his cornea and do some laser magic for a half-hour. Better vision = better hitting. Even in athletic pursuits where vision isn't quite as critical as it is in baseball, athletes swear by Lasik. Running back Tiki Barber makes much of the fact that he enjoyed his best season ever after undergoing the surgery.

A few more questions. William/Lily and other transsexuals have said that they "always knew" they were born into the wrong skin. But...is it always up to us to decide who and what we are? Suppose we're misguided, delusional? Do we always know ourselves best? Or could it be said that others often know us and evaluate us better--which is to say, more coolly and honestly--than we know and evaluate ourselves? William McBeth decided he was really meant to be a woman. Suppose I decide I'm really meant to be a sheep? And no, I'm not kidding. The issue of whether or not it's surgically doable is irrelevant here. After all, it wasn't until the 1950s that transgender surgery became doable. (And really, transgender surgery the other way--woman to man--is still something of a, ahem, stretch.)

But there are bigger fish to fry here. Beyond the question of how many things you can change while still remaining the same person, there's the question of how many things you should change in a philosophically well-grounded effort to self-actualize. Let's take a true outer-limits example. For someone who grows up as a serial killer, would a true self-actualization plan attempt to get him to stop killing? Or would it help him perfect his craft, as it were--become the best serial killer he can possibly be? I'm not trying to be purposely silly or provocative in posing that. It's a serious question. If what you're doing is becoming someone or something else, then you're not really "self-actualizing." Regarded in this manner, self-help is not just a misnomer, as we say in the subtitle of this blog; it's a complete self-deception. One could make the case that it should really be called self-abandonment.

At some point in the not-too-distant future we're going to further muddy the waters by reexamining all this from a determinist perspective. But it's late, and this is a lot for one day.

* * *
MARILYN BARRY update, March 6. Today we seem to have tangible proof of what I've long suspected: Amazon's complicity in the whole Love Smart affair. The "Marilyn R. Barry" review has been given another brand-new date--no big shock there--but also has been allowed to carry all of its 12 feedback votes along with it--which is something new (even if the actual review isn't). And remember, though 11 of the 12 votes are in the "helpful" category, I know of two people in different states (thus, not using the same computer or IP address) who gave the review a thumbs-down...so in a fair universe, the "Barry" review would be at least two votes short of perfection, not just one.

And a very strange day on Amazon draws to a close.

All the reviewers' names seem to be back up, associated with their respective reviews (see previous post).

UPDATE, Saturday, March 4. Well, it appears that "Barbara Rose, PhD, Born to Inspire" has become the official reviewer for all major self-help releases. She has long enjoyed "spotlight" prominence on Love Smart, of course, and is now accorded similar status on Wayne Dyer's (insipid) new book, Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling, currently No. 1 on Amazon. For a time she was also a spotlight reviewer on Deborah Tannen's (interesting but way overhyped) new book, You're Wearing That?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation... You still want to argue that this is all just coincidence?

Another random thought re "Marilyn Barry": How, in the most current incarnation of her familiar review, does she manage to sustain a "positive feedback ranking" of 11 out of 12 votes--when I personally know at least two people, in different states, who gave the February 26 review a thumbs-down?

And finally, in the category of "author/blogger pathetically trying to whet his readers' appetite": Major post coming tomorrow! Hope we can get a good discussion going.

Something's up (down?) at Amazon?

I notice this morning that the highly critical "Cindy Brock" review of Love Smart has now been "genericized," meaning that it's simply from "A reader." And, Amazon has finally seen fit to post my review of Wayne Dyer's book--but also under the heading, "A reader." In fact, as of this morning, all of the reviews of Dyer's book, as well as most (but not quite all) of the more recent reviews of every other book I checked, bear that same nonspecific attribution; this includes the infamous "Marilyn A. Barry" review. I wonder what criteria Amazon is using in deciding whether or not to run a review by name. I also wonder--at the risk of leaving myself open to charges of vastly inflating my own place in the universe--if at least some of what we've tried to do here at SHAMblog has played a supporting role* in Amazon's decision making.

One likes to think this augurs the beginning of a wider campaign to ensure credibility and authenticity in the presentation of reader reviews. Perhaps from now on they'll use a name only when they're certain that the writer of the review is, indeed, the one-and-only writer of the review. (Of course, that doesn't explain why they spiked my name from my review of Dyer's book. Lord knows they should be sure of who Steve Salerno is by now!) Still--absent such controls on Amazon's part--this isn't necessarily good news for those of us who value fairness and openness. Removing name attributions makes it that much harder to keep track of these things. For instance, if the "Barry" review had been doing its little number all these months under the bland designation "A reader," would we have picked up on it as readily? Doubtful. One could argue that this just makes it easier for people with subterfuge in mind. We shall see, I guess, as things evolve.

* gratuitous Oscar-inspired reference.

UPDATE, afternoon, March 2. And now, no sooner do I get this post up than Amazon starts restoring the names--randomly, here and there across the review spectrum, seemingly without rhyme or reason. (Among the "name" reviews is the one I wrote for Dyer's book.) Wish I knew what was really going on here. If I thought there was the slightest chance they'd answer me, I'd ask...

Clarification. I think.

What appears to have happened is that Amazon has implemented some sort of filter that intercepts my reviews so that they can be "blessed" (by whom, I wonder) before they're posted. This is definitely something new. Again tonight I attempted to post a review, for Wayne Dyer's latest book, Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling, and it's nowhere to be found on the book's page, despite the passage of several hours.

I wouldn't mind, if Amazon showed the same degree of caution and fairness in dealing with other reviews and reviewers. Because in that case, at least half the positive reviews for Love Smart wouldn't be there...and the two "spotlight reviews" for SHAM might be altogether different...

FAIRLY STARTLING P.S. No sooner did I finish typing the above paragraph about "fairness" than a Truly Astonishing Event occurred on the Love Smart page: A 1-star review has been elevated to "spotlight" status. Yes, you read that right. Among other things, the "real name" reviewer, "Cindy Brock," who describes hersef as a "writer, decorator, entrepreneur," says, "The last time I checked, a relationship was between 2 people: not one person trying to manipulate the other.... [T]his book only magnifies the problem of why men are stuck between a rock and a hard spot when it comes to woman. (Maybe this is why all the gorgeous guys are gay! LOL!) ... [W]hile I have generally liked Dr. Phil for a long time, I agree that this onslaught of books is just too much.... I also believe that trying to play 'therapist' in written form does not work for a lot of people [Ed. note: Kudos to you for making that observation, Cindy!] and probably does society a disservice [Ed. note: Kudos again!] Reading a book is a 1-way communication and, in this case, the communication is Dr. Phil telling you what to do, with no opportunity for you to ask questions or get additional help.... It's unfortunate that his books seem to be getting worse and worse.... [I]f this is the trend, we need to just stick with what has worked before!"

Inmates, the asylum, and you.

Here are links to two related articles, one from the Los Angeles Times and one from the Monterey Herald, that cover a phenomenon I deal with in SHAM*, as well as in a piece I wrote some time back for National Review Online. (The title of the Herald piece could not be more on-point: "Therapy Aims for Self-Help.") We are witnessing today the rise of a bold, in-your-face attitude on the part of America's mental-patient constituency. In fact, said constituents refuse to view themselves as "mental patients" and reject the label out of hand. The updated (politically correct) terminology is "clients of the mental-health system." In this brave new euphemistic world, viewing one's self as a patient is both stigmatizing and offensive; the patient, after all, needs treatment, whereas the client simply desires it. The very idea that someone seeks therapy out of need--in order to be "fixed"--entails the corollary notion that the therapy seeker was broken in the first place. And that's something today's new breed of mental patients--excuse me, clients--is unwilling to concede.

As self-esteem-based education teaches us, we're all "special," remember? There's no such thing as better or worse, normal or abnormal. There's only different.

Moroever, the implication that there's something wrong with you (which, one would assume, there is, but let's not dwell on that for now) is also "disempowering," since it suggests an authority imbalance between therapist and, er, client. Now, call me defective, but I'd think the power imbalance is actually why you're there. If the therapist didn't have some proprietary knowledge or insight or skill set that you don't have--hence, a certain "power" over you, at least in that limited context--then why would you consult him or her? Doesn't the auto mechanic enjoy some limited power over you when you take your car in to be repaired? Surely the surgeon does.

But see, the patient is a supplicant; the client is a consumer. And as a consumer, he's going to tell the system what he wants from it. He's empowered! I don't normally like to quote from my own book in this blog, but I am reminded of Dale Walsh's presentation to the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1996, wherein Walsh said that clients who "use the mental-health system" must "play a significant role in the shaping of the services, policies, and research" that affect them as part of "taking back power from the system." A second mental-health advocate, Selina Glater, once urged patients/clients to "clearly [state] what it is you need in order to feel whole again." But...if you knew that....?

What we have here is still more evidence of the self-deluding, I'm-in-charge-here nonsense that (a) has become pervasive in American society and (b) nobody seems willing to challenge with much zeal, lest we hurt people's feelings and open myriad cans of some very un-PC worms. The notion that we're all really "co-equals" (another popular term in today's world of mental health)--that even though I've gone to school for something and have spent years gaining the very expertise you came to me for, we're really partners in whatever it is we're out to accomplish in therapy--bespeaks the same basic mentality that we saw in one key part of our discussion of alternative medicine (see "Of Cam, CAM, and SHAM," below).

Aside from fact that this is transparently silly, it once again implies that there are no absolutes in life, no inviolable standards that apply across the board.

Your thoughts, fellow SHAMbloggers?

* pages 226-227.