I guess I was trying to grasp the distinction between self-help and things that aren't self-help. Of course it would make sense that it is a family resemblance concept rather than a natural kind and there are probably funny borderline cases where we aren't sure whether they are instances of self-help or not... But it can be helpful to get clearer on the concepts sometimes.

I wondered if the distinction you were trying to make was to do with the SOURCE of the ideas, or whether it was to do with what you DO WITH the ideas that you have obtained. Or maybe... It is a combination of both?

I was also wondering whether self-help was thought to be roughly synonomous with self-change for the better or something like that. So I got to thinking about meditation as (somewhat paradoxically) something that is reputed to be about acceptance rather than change and something that is done for the sake of acceptance rather than for the sake of change. If this is the correct characterisation of meditation then it would seem that meditating wouldn't be a form of self-help if self-help was roughly synonomous with self-change.

Of course one could bite the bullet on that point... I'm not sure what my intuitions tell me. Just trying to push understanding that little bit deeper :-)

Maybe your idea on the source of information is whether the information is catered to the person in particular? Individual therapy is catered to the individual, group therapy is catered to the group, reading a self-help book is catered to... People who want to improve themselves? People who want to... Accept themselves? It seems true that the audience is more general. If a therapist wrote a self-help book for a particular client then would the clients reading the book constitute self help?

> I like your idea of self-acceptance, although we may go about it in different ways. I talk about my view in Chapter 14 (see the last topic about Determinism). What do you think of that idea?

Okay. I haven't read that part... I really have to work (working to a deadline...) but I'll read it soonish and let you know :-)