[embracinglife]

I read the Psychological Self-Help, chapter 1- Understandings about Self-Help.

It was a pretty good read, and very informative over all. Very glad I read it. I've always noticed that there were lots of books on self-help at the bookstores, and kind of did think it was a gimick to make money, but at the same time, like many humans probably, I've always felt this longing to make my life better, to live more fully, prevent problems in life etc, but not known how to go about doing so. This chapter bridged the scientific with that self-help area, which I really appreciated. I even began to wonder, if I started to master some of these self-help principles, would I even need a therapist? Why do I need a therapist to begin with? Probably because I am not educated enough on how to cope with my problems.

So if I were educated, if more of us were educated on self-help, what would happen to the field of psychology? I think it wouldn't change a whole lot. We would be focusing more on education, and this would require writing curriculums, which always need to be updated and changed. It would still include therapy I'm sure, as we would still need therapy and support groups, only maybe even more people would be using these services because they were educated more about their problems. Another thing is that we would still be doing research, maybe there would be even more research opportunities available because you could follow people who are on self-help programs, and you could start creating self-help programs in order to try and empower individuals more. And then by empowering these individuals, you could then challenge them to create changes that need to be made in their own communities. Sounds wonderful! Sounds like something I would love to be involved with, this business of educating public about true scientific psychology, and even in self-help, creating more functioning individuals.

I'm planning on trying to read the rest of this online book. What a great read. And perfect for me, someone who is struggling for these different issues and also a student of psychology Just love it!

[Perna]

What great thoughts and ideas. I love imagining how things would change if various things were different (I love imagining what would happen if I were suddenly 10 again or starting high school, etc., what would I change is I still knew all I know now :-)

What I like about self-help is it is free (libraries have lots of books on the subject too!) and imaginative. You can think up your own things to try to see if you can effect change in your life. I'm constantly doing that with my health issues, trying a certain vitamin or eating a certain way, doing particular exercises, etc. But one doesn't have to get bored with self-help because of how personal it is and how much one can use one's imagination and curiosity, always good resources.

[1flagwriter]

Great thoughts, but you never want to replace a T with a book. Bad idea.