Why the Self-Help Industry is Contributing to the Loneliness Epidemic & What We Can Do About It. UPDATE FROM DR. CAROLINE LEAF

The self-help industry appears, from its name alone, to be a good thing: who doesn’t want to help themselves? Who doesn’t want to be more independent and self-sufficient? However, as I discuss in this week’s blog and podcast, it does have a darker side, and can often make us more self-involved and isolated, which, in turn, can have a negative affect on both our mental and physical health.
In many cases, the $45 billion dollar a year self-help industry is problematic because it promotes the idea that to be better you have to focus on the self as an individual, which is only half the picture. Yes, we do need to take the time to see to our own health and work on ourselves, both mentally and physically (as I have mentioned many times before!), but this is not the be all and end all of life. A “me, myself and I” mentality tends to distort our perspectives and values, impacting the way we see and interact with those around us and setting up negative feedback loops in the brain that impact our overall health and wellbeing.