Do Self-Help Books Make You Helpless?
Pretty funny. Did you know that reading self-help books can stress you out? Really. Turns out that consumers of self-help books are more sensitive to stress and show higher depressive symptomatology, according to a new study in Montreal. I think I might know why. Probably those of us who are drawn to these kinds of publications are already under stress and looking for solutions. I know when I was an aficionado of these kinds of books, it was only because I was totally stuck in some situation that I couldn't figure how to get out of. “Initially, we thought we had observed a difference in participants in terms of personality, sense of control, and self-esteem based on their self-help reading habits,” explains Catherine Raymond, first author of the study and a doctoral student at the CSHS of the Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal, at newswise.com. “In reality, there seems to be no difference between those who read and those who do not re...