To me self help is not waiting for my therapist to fix me. its taking the inititive to look for resourses and trying them on my own.

Locating and attending a depression management group because I have depression and need to know how to take care of myself and the depression symptoms.

locating and actively doing workbooks and activity books on taking care of the problems that I have such as The Courage to Heal text and workbook, The PTSD workbook, The Depression Workbook, The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook, Getting Through The Day, Recreating Yourself,

Locating on line resources and actively using the information to help myself for example

http://www.lauradavis.net
http://www.nancyjnapier.com
http://www.healthjourneys.com

And many others that are listed on my blog links including here at psych central.

Self help is bringing the relaxation visualizations that my therapist and I do in therapy sessions home and using them.

Self help is my -
journaling
artwork
building scale models
dairamas
logs and charts
researching at the local library

to me self help is when I wake up in a panic attack and I take care of it by putting on my relaxation music and taking a relaxing bath

Self help for me is riding the city bus and recognizing I am starting to panic and feel floaty and far away so I put on my music and use my grounding techniques of paying attention to how the seat feels, the texture of the road the bus is traveling on,

Basically to me self help is doing something to make myself and my problems better.