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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 9 of 9. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by fires on December 30, 2005, at 17:16:00
Must reading
"Sham" How the Self Help Movement Made America Helpless. by Steve Salerno
"Salerno offers the first serious expose' of this multibillion-dollar industry (the self help industry) and the real damage it is doing... to all of American society."
Exposes: self help gurus, Dr. Phil, Tony Robbins, Dr. Laura, etc...
Also covers: the failure of 12 step programs, victimization, "dysfunctional", "life coaching", children who can't read or write -- but have self esteem, and much more.
Posted by ClearSkies on December 31, 2005, at 7:43:59
In reply to America Helpless, posted by fires on December 30, 2005, at 17:16:00
I was intrigued by this book - thanks for the endorsement! I'll put it on my list.
I always knew that Robbins guy had too many teeth to be real, anyway.
Posted by fires on December 31, 2005, at 11:33:53
In reply to Re: America Helpless, posted by ClearSkies on December 31, 2005, at 7:43:59
> I was intrigued by this book - thanks for the endorsement! I'll put it on my list.
> I always knew that Robbins guy had too many teeth to be real, anyway.Yeh! I've been jumping around from chapter to chapter, so I haven't read about Robbins yet. I've read about him in the past. The info. on Dr. Phil's past is quite enlightening.
Posted by pseudoname on January 3, 2006, at 15:11:06
In reply to America Helpless, posted by fires on December 30, 2005, at 17:16:00
The Amazon link above went to an engineering book by Professor Sham Tickoo. :-)
The link to fires's book is "SHAM by Steve Salerno".
There aren't any excerpts of it at Amazon, though, so here's a link to 15 pages at BookBrowse:
http://www.bookbrowse.com/excerpts/index.cfm?book_number=1619(I just got on the waiting list for it at the library. Whether I agree or disagree with these critical books, I find them fun to read. Thanks, fires. I hadn't heard of this one.)
Posted by fires on January 3, 2006, at 16:57:53
In reply to links for “SHAM” by Salerno, posted by pseudoname on January 3, 2006, at 15:11:06
> The Amazon link above went to an engineering book by Professor Sham Tickoo. :-)
>
> The link to fires's book is "SHAM by Steve Salerno".
>
> There aren't any excerpts of it at Amazon, though, so here's a link to 15 pages at BookBrowse:
> http://www.bookbrowse.com/excerpts/index.cfm?book_number=1619
>
> (I just got on the waiting list for it at the library. Whether I agree or disagree with these critical books, I find them fun to read. Thanks, fires. I hadn't heard of this one.)
I wasn't familiar with Book Browse. Also, thanks for demonstrating how to use the double ". I've used them with titles alone, but the titles were very unique.This is one of those book I find in which the author is preaching to the choir (me).
Posted by pseudoname on January 3, 2006, at 18:28:35
In reply to Re: links for “SHAM” by Salerno » pseudoname, posted by fires on January 3, 2006, at 16:57:53
> I wasn't familiar with Book Browse.
I just found it this afternoon. Isn't it neat?
I like the way it has first chapters and they're regular text, not pictures like at Amazon. I still have dial-up and pictures take forever :(
> thanks for demonstrating how to use the double ".
My pleasure. I've used titles, author names by themselves, ISBN numbers, sometimes even keywords & descriptions inside the double-quotes.
Posted by fires on January 3, 2006, at 18:53:53
In reply to links for “SHAM” by Salerno, posted by pseudoname on January 3, 2006, at 15:11:06
My only complaint about Book Browse is that the number of books seems to be quite limited.
I understand about dial up. I remember what it was like. My DSL has been slow at times recently, and I find it *irritating*.
Thanks
Posted by Declan on January 4, 2006, at 1:29:02
In reply to Re: links for “SHAM” by Salerno » pseudoname, posted by fires on January 3, 2006, at 18:53:53
It is maybe a similar subject and a book I've always wanted to read (and haven't)............"The Culture of Narcissism" by Christopher Lasch.
Declan
Posted by pseudoname on March 1, 2006, at 13:03:22
In reply to Re: America Helpless » ClearSkies, posted by fires on December 31, 2005, at 11:33:53
This is what Steve Salerno has to say about mental health patients in “SHAM” (pg 226-227).
<quote>
A textbook example of SHAM's [the self-help & actualization movement's] ability to turn things topsy-turvy can be found in the field of mental health, where a legitimate interest in supporting the independence of the mentally ill has also given birth to a radical form of patient advocacy. At a presentation to the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1996, Dale Walsh, the vice president of Riverbend Community Mental Health, came front and center with such revisionism. He spoke of how some among the mentally ill have taken to using the term “psychiatric inmates” to “make clear their dissatisfaction” with the “power inequities” of their treatment, and how, in California and elsewhere, backlash against that “patriarchal system” had caused the mentally ill to refer to themselves as “consumers” or even “clients” of the system. The use of such terminology, said Walsh, captured their newfound “sense of empowerment and the place they feel they can occupy within the hierarchy” of mental-health treatment. Of his own mental-illness history, Walsh said he used to think “there was something wrong with me,” while lamenting the fact that traditionally “people who have been labeled as mentally ill have been considered to have poor judgment.” Walsh wrapped up by asserting that modern-day consumers “who use the mental-health system” must “play a significant role in the shaping of the services, policies, and research” that affect them as part of “taking back power from the system.” Another mental-health activist, Selina Glater of Sanctuary Psychiatric Centers, has written that “empowerment,” in a mental-health setting, is about “clearly stating what it is you need in order to feel whole again.” Inmates running the asylum indeed.
Such bold rhetoric invites skepticism on many grounds, the most obvious, perhaps, being the implication that just because people *want* power, they're entitled to it, regardless of circumstances. But the most compelling flaw in arguments like those made by Walsh and Glater might be their assumption that people who know there's something wrong with them are ipso facto the best ones to decide how they can be cured.
<unquote>
• "SHAM: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless" by Steve Salerno (2004; 273 pages) ISBN 1400054095
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