Quack Psychology, The Secret, and You

Evaluating (and avoiding) dubious self-help

Psychology and time-management fascinate me. These twin obsessions drive one of Higher Process’s main themes: exploring the research support, such as it is, for the effectiveness of time-management strategies. But interest in psychology is not all that drives me to this particular topic. I want to avoid being part of a particular crowd that sprang up in the wake of 43folders.com’s success, identified by Merlin Mann last year:

Over the years, “productivity blogs” of unbelievably varying quality shot up like hothouse kudzu--many baldly hoping to capitalize on the low-cost, high-return business of theoretically useful self-help publishing--mostly without affecting even the vaguest patina of wanting to help another human being solve a real-world problem. Some of these folks continue to make a living (and draw a considerable crowd) by producing material that I personally find transparently dumb and useless.

And, for that matter, I don’t want to fall in with self-help quack psychologists of the early 20th century (hat tip: Mind Hacks):

PSEUDO-PSYCHOLOGISTS, who promise, like fairy godmothers, to turn every-day human beings into fascinating personalities or into great financial successes, are creating large groups of discontented individuals, according to Dr. E. A. Shaw and George E. Gardner, of the Harvard University Psycho-Educational Clinic.

. . .

The psychological quack, half informed concerning scientific psychological principles, undertakes in a conference or by lectures, and for no small fee, to advise men and women about their mental and vocational ills. The two Harvard psychologists explain that "these men, we maintain--and their numbers are growing day by day--are a detriment to the mental health of the community. In their doctrines and platitudes there is just enough of truth and of falsity to make them dangerous."

I feel a sense of responsibility to any reader who stumbles upon my site; I want Higher Process to offer help in the shape of research-backed possibilities, not empty promises from compelling-sounding (but ultimately empty) nonsense.

Given that, I admired and enjoyed Jason Hanna’s Good, bad and ugly self-help: How can you tell? Hanna recounts the recent troubles of James Arthur Ray, one of the “teachers” featured in The Secret. He explores whether three deaths during a recent Ray seminar should raise doubts about the validity of The Secret. I think the connection is tenuous, but then The Secret doesn’t exactly need help debunking itself.

Perhaps more valuable is Hanna’s discussion of the larger (and, he notes, unregulated) self-help industry. Three of the experts quoted neatly sum up its shortcomings, and offer tips for spotting self-help shenanigans:

Gerald Rosen, a clinical psychologist in Seattle, Washington, says he believes more self-help books should undergo pre-publication testing--especially those written by psychologists, who he says should be held to a high professional standard.

"When you look at a book for depression, there probably isn't a blurb on the back that says this book has been shown in studies to help 65 percent of those who have been diagnosed with this. There's just a claim that this can happen for you," said Rosen, a former chairman of the American Psychological Association's task force on self-help therapies.

[John C. Norcross, professor of psychology at the University of Scranton] says that a lack of scientific evidence isn't the only thing to look out for. Other characteristics that should make consumers wary, he says:

• Authors or speakers who don't have formal training in the featured topic. "They should look for someone with rigorous training at an accredited university and who has spent years investigating and conducting these treatments," Norcross said.
• Programs that don't screen consumers for problems. For example, Norcross says, certain programs might be harmful for a person with bipolar disorder.
• People who reject conventional knowledge and instead imply a revolutionary secret. "It's marketing, essentially," Norcross said.
• People who propose solutions for all problems instead of particular problems.

Michael Shermer, executive director of the Skeptics Society, said consumers should be wary of programs that cost a lot of money but teach no hands-on skills.

Indeed; I believe that learning, growing, and improving require an open mind, but an open mind and an open wallet are two different things.

I also like that these tests require no scientific background to apply. Many (maybe all) of the most execrable examples of self-help I’ve encountered would fail at least one of these measures.

I created this site, in part, to explore and validate good ideas in time- and life-management. The flip side of that is a desire to be forthright and candid when promising strategies are not supported by the available evidence. I believe good advice is harder to find (and to trust) when bad advice proliferates. But staying alert--and using heuristics like the ones described above--make that part of my job that much easier.

Friday, December 11, 2009