SELF HELP ON A SHELF or Navigating the personal-improvement maze
Navigating the personal-improvement maze
By Brian James Kansan staff writer
Daryl Evans remembers a time when self-help books were a dime a dozen.
In the late '70s and early '80s, a proliferation of books, such as "The Power of Positive Thinking" and "You Can if You Think You Can," promised that readers could master the world by following a few simple rules.
"They helped people who had been part of alternative lifestyles, mainly former hippies, who were thinking, I'm going to have to get my life together," said Evans, associate professor of sociology.
Focus shifts
Today, the number of self-help books is down and the focus of the books has shifted. Books such as, "When I Say No, I Feel Guilty" and "101 Conversations You Should Have with YourChild" promise not so much success as they do common-sense solutions to everyday problems.
But although most self-help books rely on a light, yet earnest, mind of psychobable and common sense, others rely all too much on the latter.
"Making Friends," "How to Enjoy Your Life," and "101 Ways to Pet your Pet" offer entertaining insight into the world of the obvious.
Others, like Judy Kuriansky's "How to Love a Nice Guy," construct 10-step plans to deal with the perplexing problem at hand. "Finding that nice guy and falling in love" is the main issue discussed in Kuriansky's book.
OVER 5,000,000 COPIES IN PRINT
And in "How to Love a Difficult Man," psychotherapist Nancy Good
writes that any woman can win tiresome arguments about money or vacation plans with her husband — in just nine easy steps.
Intellectual junk food
Many avid readers of self-help books, including some KU students, agreed that the bulk of these books were beneath them and existed only as a kind of intellectual junk food. Yet bookstore owners said they sold consistently well.
Roxanne Hall, book department manager for Hastings, Southwest Plaza, said the store stocked 300 to 400 self-help books. She estimated that every day the store sold up to six of these books, usually to women.
"Books in Print '92-'93" listed more than 1500 self-help and improvement books this year.
"Women are much more willing to seek out their true emotions and motivations," Hall said. "Men are told, 'Suck it up and be a man.'"
A recent organization conducted by the Gallup organization determined that women buy nearly 85 percent of all selfhelp books sold.
Lisa Eitner, buyer for the Mt. Oread
book shop, said the bookstore had several sections of self-improvement books.
books were useful but most avoided the real problem.
She said the self-help book market had suffered a backlash from book buyers in recent years. One reason was the rising sentiment against some self-help books that seemed to place blame rather than seek solutions, she said.
Evans said some self-help
"We have become a quick-fix society," Evans said. "We see something in society that we can be broken, but instead of focusing on it, we see that it would be hell of a lot easier to fix the individual's problem."
"Authoritarian"
In her book "I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional," Wendy Kaminer compared self-help books to 12-step support groups, like Alcoholics Anonymous, calling them "authoritarian and conformist."
"They encourage people to look outside themselves for standardized instructions on how to be — teaching us that different people with different problems can be saved by the same techniques," she wrote.
Kaminer wrote that self-help books can be helpful, for example, when psychologists prescribed them to their patients but said that the glut of "illogical self-improvement books" hurt their overall credibility.
Though light-hearted self-improvement books were easy enough to
ridicule, Hall said, and served only to reinforce what people already know, books that dealt with issues like abuse and addictions were important.
"I get frustrated when I hear, 'Oh, gee, another "Oprah" show that deals with another addiction,'" she said. "I think there's a problem with that."
"These problems do occur, and we should not look at these books in the same light."
David Futrelle, an author of several articles about self-help books, agreed.
"Seeking help for problems — whether from therapy, medication, recovery groups or even from books — is a step, however tentative, toward real independence and away from a life dominated by self-hatred," he said.
"Real independence"
However, Futrelle, author of an article titled, "Hooked on Self-Help Books," said it is possible, ironically, to become dependent on these books that are supposed to help people with their addictions.
He said the cure for this addiction was not on any shelf in any bookstore. His advice: "Just cheer up!"
QUIPS AND QUOTES
Tammv Fave Bakker marries Wichita developer
RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — It was a marriage made in a Christian theme park.
Tammy Faye Bakker exchanged vows Sunday with an old family friend, Wichita developer Roe Messler, while her ex-husband, fallen televangelist iim Bakker, serves time in prison for fraud.
Messner built much of the Heritage USA Christian complex in Fort Mill, S.C., that Jim Bakker formerly ran. Messner recently divorced his wife, Ruth Ann.
About 50 people attended Sunday's brief, nondenominational ceremony.
"Tammy sang 'Jesus Loves Me' with a prerecorded orchestra, balad-style. It was beautiful," said Ruth Gibson, a society columnist.
The Bakkers ended their 30-year marriage last year. Tammy Faye said she remains friends with Bakker, who is serving an eight-year prison sentence in Jesup, Ga., and is scheduled for release on Oct. 20, 1984.
MTV fan blows it up
The actors watched Sunday as the explosives, helped by 36 drums of gasoline, turned two old waterfront warehouses into huge fireballs in a promotion for their new futuristic action adventure movie "Demolition Man."
"It was a rush, a pure rush," said Chris Morales, a part-time University of Miami student, chosen to push a plunger that destroyed the 86-year-old buildings, one nine stories, the other six. They were being torn down to make way for a waterfront plaza.
Fifty people chosen by MTV in a nationwide contest watched the five-second blast with Stallone and Snipes and then partied around the rubble.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes and 1,600 sticks of dynamite — a perfect combination for a demolition.
TABLOID ROUNDUP
A top-secret government report has revealed that a manned spacecraft from another galaxy crashed on a barren maze in New Mexico and that only one survivor was found — a 3-month-old baby.
The Associated Press
Space alien baby survives UFO crash
The tiny humanoid female was encased in a heavily padded metallic canister which apparently was ejected from the spacecraft seconds before it slammed into the mesa and exploded in flames.
The crash was witnessed by Navajo Indians who quickly notified military authorities. Those officials will neither confirm nor deny the crash or the existence of the infant alien.
Do-it-yourself dentist
Weekly World News
Rugged trucker Toby Rink thinks dentists are dumb, so the do-it-yourself dad fixes all the teeth in his family — using drills, pliers, chisels and hammers from the toolbox in his garage.
"Every dentist I've ever known is an idiot, so I'll be damned if I'll pay 'em my hard-earned money to do something I can do right here at home," growled tightwad Toby, 48.
"When somebody's teeth get dirty you scrape 'em clean. And when they ache, you fill 'em or yank 'em out and I can do that with the tools I used to build the deck out back of the house."
Toby's wife and daughter don't mind having their dad do all their dental work.
"Daddy's got big hands and it hurts when he starts chasing around in there, said Angela, 13. But he keeps my teeth looking all shiny and nice, and when I get a toothache, he fixes it."
People and places at the University of Kansas.
calendar
Edward Bernstein
Professor from Indiana University, Bloomington, his works on paper run Oct. 10-22 at the gallery in the Art and Design building, free
Exhibitions
"The Secret Garden"
Illustrations by Tom Allen runs through Oct. 17 at the Study Gallery in the Spencer Museum of Art, free
Paintings and drawings on display until Oct. 8 Art and Design building, free
Hallmark Symposium
Yueon Gayh Yehp, professor, and Jean Giguet, curator of exhibits from the University of Las Vegas
"American Indian Baskets from the University of Kansas Museum of Anthropology Exhibit runs through Oct. 10 at the White Gallery in the Spencer Museum of Art, free
Friday through Oct. 16 at the gallery on level four of the Kansas Union, free
Mark Chickanelli, illustrator, Omaha, Neb., 6 p.m. Monday in the auditorium in the Spencer Museum of Art, free
Exhibit: KU and Kansas Union history on display
Inge Theater Series "An Evening With Sam"
Three short plays by Samuel Beckett, "Footfalls," "Ohio Impromptu" and "Rockaby" eighty until Oct. 9 at Inge Theatre in Murphy Hall, public $6, students $3, senior citizens $5
Visiting artists recital: Gerald Amory, trombone and Tom Price, tuba, at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Swarthout Recital Hall, free
Performances
Tubafest
Fall concert wind ensemble:
Robert Foster, James Barnes, co-conductors Jack Winerock, piano soloist at 7:30 tonight in the Lied Center, public $6, students $3 senior citizens $5
Fall concert: University Symphony Orchestra Brian Priestman, conductor; Wendy Zaro-Fisher, soprano; Susan Brashier, oboe; John Boulton, flute, William Campbell, trumpet and Ben Sayevich, violin at 7:30 p.m. Friday in the Lied Center, public $6, students $3, senior citizens $5
Sankal Juku
8 p.m. Oct. 13 at the Lied Center, free
Faculty recital:
Faculty Recital
David Bushouse, horn, at 7:30 p.m. Monday
Oct. 11 at Swarthout Recital Hall, free