When my teenage angst turned into something else in college, two books were recommended to me, both lifesavers: David Burns Feeling Good the New Mood Therapy, and I'm OK You're OK (yes I am aging myself). This was when Cognitive Therapy was really going, and like the Ellis book ), focused on the tapes we play that we can change by rethinking. Some folks criticized Burns for making the unspoken conclusion that if you didn't succeed it was your own fault. I never picked up that attitude. Its probably best used during actual therapy, but it doesn't have to be. I know his work has been updated, it would be interesting to reread.

I tend to stay away from self help books, because I find that they are too ambiguous, too new agey, or too obvious. But the above two really did help me.

A friend of mine uses EFT in her practice. Very interesting technique - sort of a combination of do it yourself acupressure, yoga, and stress managment. Says she's used it for people who are having chronic pain, tramatic stress disorder, depression and others. Seems weird - you tap certain places on your body while you repeat what you need to say - but she swears by it. And she has the same aversion to new age stuff that I do.

On a totally different subject - Rabbi Harold Kushner's Why Bad Things Happen to Good People was one I read over and over again. A dear friend had been raped and left for dead. I needed help dealing with the why, so I could help be a friend to her in the present. A very honest yet soothing read.

Here is a link that might be useful: Emotional Freedom Therapy

This link better explains the therapy

Here is a link that might be useful: EFT

I like Sarah Ban Breathnacht's, "Something More, Excavating Your Authentic Self."

Nothing replaces good old theraphy though. But if you don't have 4 or 5 years some of these books are helpful. Therapy was the best time and money I ever spent.

I've read Viktor Frankl's classic Man's Search for Meaning several times over my almost-five decades. I have also found motivation from Dag Hammarskjold's unusual "autobiography," Markings.

When I was an angry, angst ridden teenager and had run away from home, I came across the book Illusions: Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach. And even though it's not a "self-help" book per se, it certainly helped me. I say that if it didn't save my life, it certainly saved my sanity!

I've been thinking alot about this thread. I've read many self help books, but the ones I've found most helpful were novels and biographies. It ties into a quote mentioned on another thread that we read so we know we're not alone. In the sixth grade, "The Velvet Room" by Zilpha Keatley Snyder made such an impression I don't know how many times I read it. As an adult, I read "And Ladies of the Club" every 5 to 6 years or so. Anne Gordon is one of my fictional role models. And for escape, The Cazelet Chronicles helped me through a recovery from a painful surgery.

SmallCoffee - What an interesting (and refreshing) take on self-help books! I certainly wasn't thinking along those lines when I started the thread, but you've opened my mind to a new viewpoint. I bet many of us here at RP could qualify our reading as a sort of ongoing therapy. I know I've always seen jigsaw puzzles in that light - an escape from the rigors of life. Reading can be the same (and a bit more educational than jigsaw puzzles). Thanks for posting! By the way, I've never read And Ladies of the Club but I'm certainly intrigued enough now to put it on my TBR list.

Ah, if we're talking fiction rather than the traditional self-help type of book, I can thank Miss Read for putting me back on track after 9/11. I was an absolute wreck for about a month afterward, complete with physical symptoms (sleepless, upset stomach) and it took about ten Fairacre books to calm me down. They did the trick and I am very grateful. She provided the escape I needed and everything balanced out from there. Good therapy, indeed!

amazing site for books www.readingzone.com to help children, parents and librarians

I'm a little late to this thread, but, kathy-I too use ...and Ladies of the Club for therapy-as well as In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden. That is the book I reread after 9/11. Like Anne in ...and Ladies, the main character, Phillipa, is by way of being a shining example of coping with courage, dignity and love.
Miss Read has also been a place I turn when the world is uprooted. I find her world more consoling than the Mitford books, although I do like those. Perhaps because Miss Read's books center around schools, and I have been a teacher for so long.
Cozy mysteries, when everything is tidy at the end, are also therapeutic. And, because I was raised in the Christian faith, the Bible has been a source of solace.
I have never really used non-fiction self-help books, and the one time I was forced into "group reading and discussing" by a boss, I was so resentful of the hijacking and waste of my discretionary time that that book wasn't going to make an impression on me no matter what so there!

I also enjoyed Miss Read's Fairacre! I only wish my little classroom could be like hers. "In this house of Brede" is now on my TBR list. I've noticed it mentioned several times at RP.

What an interesting turn this discussion has taken.

Cece - Your "no matter what so there" really made me laugh. I know that feeling!

Harry - Are there any particular books mentioned on that site that you recommend as "reading therapy?"

I agree that novels have often gotten me through the worst of times. One of my favorite comfort reads from childhood that still works is Once and Future King. There are others which have given me the help I needed. But now and then - sometimes its not enough.

I don't read many self help books aside from the ones mentioned, but I know many have helped others. What bugs me is when people send books to people in a crisis situation, thinking they will help them. Referring mainly to books for children, they are for readers who are experiencing terminal illness, death, divorce, etc. I think these can be used to start off a discussion. But for people in the midst of this, I think its one more message of how they are supposed to be. I can't imagine these books would be helpful unless you are getting them for yourself.

I remember that when my first marriage was coming to an end, I read a book that accurately described for me the problems the specific situation I faced. It helped me to accept that it was not somehow All My Fault. By understanding this, I was able to break out of my deer-in-the-headlights state, go forward, and get on with normal life. I found it very useful. I do not remember the author or the title.

In any case, I agree with the posters here who find that fiction is more likely to be comforting in times of trouble than most self-help books. It need not directly address the problem the reader is facing. It only needs to open a window into another time and place, and remind the reader that this too shall pass.

Rosefolly

Add me to the list of people who find help and comfort in fiction ... although I do read (and write/edit) self-help books.

When my mother died several years ago, I ended up with such horrendous back pain that I finally just went to bed for several weeks (maybe not the best approach). I found two things that helped:

Fiction: While I was unable to do much of anything but lay in bed, I read stacks of books. And Rosefolly is right, it's not so much the title or subject of the book, but the fact that while reading you're transported out of your own physical or emotional pain for a time. The only two titles I can remember reading during that time are: The Liar's Club by Mary Karr and Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem ... still one of my favorite books.

Non-fiction: The book that actually led to my back getting better was Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection by John Sarno, M.D. I later talked to a physician friend and told her about the book. She said: "I know that book. It cured my back pain a couple of years ago."

I have been accused of being able to let the house burn down when I'm reading. And it's close to true. A good book, usually fiction, but not always, takes me away to someplace else. I can't cope without books.

And I can't stand waiting around without something to read! (Do you know there are people who go to airports, or worse, get on planes or public transportation, without a book?) The other day, while the grandkids were sledding, I got too cold to stay out watching and walking around. Horrors, I had forgotten my book. The only thing in the car was the local phone book! Learned alot about Fairbault,MN and the surrounding communities!

granjan- I also can't go anywhere without a book. Just holding it or knowing it's in my purse makes me feel better. I keep a spare copy of "And Ladies of the Club" in the backseat of my car. That's where I read on my lunch break so if I forget my current book, I'll definitely have something.

rosefolly-you also bring back the memory of a self-help book I read while in the throes of divorce. I remember the author Daphne Rose-Kingma, but not the title. If by chance it is the same book, it also helped with the guilt.

Ditto to granjan and smallcoffee about needing a book while waiting. Yesterday, my friend was a few minutes late for our lunch date. I was seated at a table, but my book was in the car outside the restaurant. I agonized over whether to fetch it, knowing my friend's arrival was imminent. (She once caught me doing exactly that and it was a little embarrassing. I believe she thought me a bit obsessive, not able to relax and waste a few minutes. Wait ... could she be right?)

I keep a book in the car, too. It's been a life saver while waiting for the kids to emerge from their after-school activities. Granjan, I can't fathom not bringing books (not one, multiples!) on any longer trip or vacation. Last year's two weeks in NC required ten books -- I didn't get to all of them, but I felt much better just having them with me. My DH has learned not to comment on the Book Bag when we travel *vbg*.

I always have a book in my car. And I don't get how people can just sit and stare into space waiting for the dr or standing in line. But they probably wonder what I get from a book. And yeah, if I don't have something to read I do go a bit crazy.

Ha! I had so many paperback books packed together in my check-through luggage once that the airport screener opened the bag to see what the "black rectangle" was. She laughed when she saw the books. Now I scatter them around.

I leaned against a wall and read yesterday while waiting to be seated in my favorite cafe for lunch by myself. One of the women waiting in front of me asked me if my book was good as they were leaving.

Coming late to this thread: all the self help, John Bradshaw type books have never helped me as nuch as even tiny doses of Miss Read, Laurie Lee, and Flora Thompson. I can recall escaping to the English countryside many a time after too stressfull, post modern events, e.g.Lark Rise to Candleford or Cider with Rosie. Likewise, books set in the American West of the Pioneers, such as Willa Cather's My Antonia, have been a great comfort.

Friends have urged Viktor Frankel's work on me repeatedly. When I read it, it was little or no help at all.

On the other hand I am one who will seek out favorite films to watch over and over again, as "therapy", when under extreme stress.

My grandmother used to say "I'll go do something else and break the worry circle." I think that is what a good book (or film) does. It breaks the path of the worries or stresses circling around and around in the brain.