Finished my Self Help book for February. This one was Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? by Dr. Julie Smith. It was promoted as a practical self help book with tools that you could use to improve your mental health.
Full disclosure I used to read psychology books for fun. I entertained the idea of going back to school and becoming a psychologist for a long time. My mother in law did do that and worked as a counselor. She also shared books with me that she thought I'd find interesting. Or that she thought I might figure out what was wrong with me and fix it, I was never exactly sure which one. Probably a little of both.
Anyway...
A review I saw of this was one sentence, "Somebody has." And that sort of fit my take away. There wasn't anything new for me. But there was A LOT in there. It was sort of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Dummies. Really simplified chapters with overviews of fairly complex issues. But with actual things you can do to help yourself as well. It was kind of like being hit with a firehose of information, but the soaking came from a LOT of mist instead of a blast of water. If that makes sense to you.
There were a lot of chapters and subchapters around different issues, which would be handy if say you were looking for help with anxiety but didn't have issues with your relationships. But the chapters and information built on each other and referenced each other so you couldn't really skip around. So you were left reading a lot of information that might or might not be useful to you.
In my 20s I would have found it all pretty interesting because it would have been the first time I was introduced to concepts like your breathing is tied to your emotional state and because I wouldn't have been reading it to help me with an actual problem I was having taking in all of that information would have been good. The sampler platter of cognitive health practices.
However if you are someone who wanted help with something, some specific issue you were having, it would be a lot to try and wade through. I especially felt badly for anyone with anxiety reading the book. Reading all of the other issues and trying to absorb all of the information she was continually pushing out would have made it so much worse I would think. It would have been really overwhelming around chapter 30 if not before that.
The only thing that kept it from being a DNF was my personal goal challenge. And trying to keep in mind that I was trying to compare what 20 something me would get out of it vs. 54 year old me. I didn't feel like saying 20 something me would find it fascinating I think but 54 year old me found something else to do. Though that's pretty accurate. Instead I powered through.
It wasn't a bad book, and if you are interested in how CBT works it might be a good choice. But if you are looking for actual help with an issue I would suggest finding an actual CBT therapist and going that route. Even with a few weeks of visits it would probably be quicker than powering through the book.
Hopefully next month's choice will be more interesting to me. Or if not more interesting than at least shorter?
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