annotation: Self Help
Apr. 30th, 2025 06:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matsushima posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
pineislandI don't really believe in "guilty pleasures" but self help/self improvement is my "guilty pleasure" genre. I think there's a lot of genuinely great books that get sold as self help (How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing, e.g.) but there's also a lot of dumb and dangerous self help books.
So I had avoided Gabrielle Bernstein's books, like Super Attractor, because a book about manifesting with a hot white woman on the cover? almost definitely dumb and very likely dangerous. (I have OCD; I already believe ["believe" - I don't really believe it but my brain insists that it's better safe than sorry] that if I think bad thoughts, bad things will happen, and that I must complete elaborate rituals to ward off the danger that I've brought upon myself and my loved ones with my wrongthink.)
I didn't recognize her name, though, when I checked out Self Help: This is Your Chance to Change Your Life. It's an astonishingly empty title that doesn't give the slightest hint what's inside but it's about Internal Family Systems, a type of therapy I've always been interested in but could never find a provider covered by my insurance. (As a person who is very in touch with my inner child and imaginary friends(
), it seemed like a good fit for me.)
I've tried to read the provider books but I'm not a trained therapist and I've tried the workbook but I lost momentum so I figured I could use a layperson's introduction but even then, I felt like it was a little too dumbed down? like, to the point that it was a little insulting as a reader; I'm not a trained therapist but I'm also not a complete idiot.
Somehow I connected this very bland book cover with "hot rich white lady" book cover but I was still willing to go along to get along because the guy who founded IFS therapy wrote the intro, so… OK.
… and then she got to repressed memories and I scuttled away because I absolutely do not fuck with that. There is no scientific evidence that repressed memories are real but belief in this concept real harm. I remember things that aren't real but I know that and I feel weird about it! I don't want to discredit any survivor's experience but I also feel like… I'm not touching this.
I haven't been able to bring myself back to reading Self Help and now I'm also going to be skeptical of IFS therapy because Richard C. Schwartz endorsed this book! He should know better.
So I had avoided Gabrielle Bernstein's books, like Super Attractor, because a book about manifesting with a hot white woman on the cover? almost definitely dumb and very likely dangerous. (I have OCD; I already believe ["believe" - I don't really believe it but my brain insists that it's better safe than sorry] that if I think bad thoughts, bad things will happen, and that I must complete elaborate rituals to ward off the danger that I've brought upon myself and my loved ones with my wrongthink.)
I didn't recognize her name, though, when I checked out Self Help: This is Your Chance to Change Your Life. It's an astonishingly empty title that doesn't give the slightest hint what's inside but it's about Internal Family Systems, a type of therapy I've always been interested in but could never find a provider covered by my insurance. (As a person who is very in touch with my inner child and imaginary friends(
), it seemed like a good fit for me.) I've tried to read the provider books but I'm not a trained therapist and I've tried the workbook but I lost momentum so I figured I could use a layperson's introduction but even then, I felt like it was a little too dumbed down? like, to the point that it was a little insulting as a reader; I'm not a trained therapist but I'm also not a complete idiot.
Somehow I connected this very bland book cover with "hot rich white lady" book cover but I was still willing to go along to get along because the guy who founded IFS therapy wrote the intro, so… OK.
… and then she got to repressed memories and I scuttled away because I absolutely do not fuck with that. There is no scientific evidence that repressed memories are real but belief in this concept real harm. I remember things that aren't real but I know that and I feel weird about it! I don't want to discredit any survivor's experience but I also feel like… I'm not touching this.
I haven't been able to bring myself back to reading Self Help and now I'm also going to be skeptical of IFS therapy because Richard C. Schwartz endorsed this book! He should know better.
