I'm a ghostwriter. I write self-help books, including some for some of the bigger names in the niche. I do it because it's interesting, pays well and gives me a chance to write, which is what I love. But the industry is still largely selling a legal version of crack cocaine to a largely impressionable, naive and self-deluding audience.

I've had this discussion with some top self-help gurus and they cynically laugh about the "addiction" aspect of the self-help process. They know it's true and they profit hugely off it. It goes something like this:

1. Person reads self-help book.

2. Reader attends seminar, where she (there are more women than men) is sold thousands of dollars worth of tapes, CD sets, boot camps, etc. and pumped full of positive, can-do messages.

3. Person gets a huge buzz and feels like she is actually making substantial changes in her life simply by ATTENDING the event and BUYING stuff.

4. Person goes home. The buzz fades. The books and CDs collect dust on a shelf. Because most self-help programs are filled with glib, shallow advice and programs and little encouragement to become self-aware and face the fact that change is HARD, few consumers of this stuff make substantive changes in their lives.

5. Person wants to get that purposeful buzz back, so she buys the author's next book, goes to another seminar, attends a boot camp, pays $5,000 for coaching or a teleseminar, and so on. Buzz returns. She feels great for a few weeks more.

6. Repeat.

7. Self-help guru laughs all the way to the bank and never has to prove the effectiveness of his or her ideas because maybe 10% of the people who buy into them ever take any action at all.

This is a bit of an oversimplification, but not by much. As Niesslein found out, so much of the ideas in this subculture are facile, shallow and pretty lame. There are some good self-help figures out there, but I'd say they're maybe a 20% minority. The rest are all about getting 'em hooked and getting the check.

In my work, I avoid the people I consider to be blatant crack dealers. You have to be able to look at yourself in the morning. Plus, typically the bigger names are the bigger whores, and they already have their own writers.

I'D like your letter to get a star. Excellent read. Dying to know the inside dish.

A star for Pacificwhim.

The only kind of self-help books that are really any good are the type that tell you how to pass the General Contractor exam, or how to get into Law School.

I've actually just cut and pasted Pacificwhim's letter into an email for my husband - whose mother is the self help publishers dream come true. She buys and buys and buys. Worse - she tries and tries and tries to improve ME with all this stuff.

Self help has always seemed to be just an industry. I like Seligman too - but I would put him in the therapy camp rather than the self help one. The therapy camp seems more legit to me because therapy implies commitment, investment, and time. Self help somehow always seems to convey the promise that your problems are simple really and you can fix them.

The most revealing statement Oprah ever made is that she has never done therapy. The only reason why not that I can see is that then she might stop crying on TV.

Then there's this new genre of people trying out a genre ... eg the woman named Julia who has written a memoir about cooking Julia Child's for a year. And now this one.

Quick! Pacifwhim - if I think of a new angle, how about a year spent reading Proust (woops I think someone's done that one) will you ghostwrite a 'memoir' about it for me?

Both the idea of the book and the interviewer. All the questions I wanted to ask were here, and I thought Ms. Niesslein sounded funny and sensible. I'm a motivational psychologist, research-trained, who constantly rages at the "motivational speakers" and "motivational experts" whose main expertise is getting people fired up to buy their books, rather than in the actual field of motivational research. Indeed, David McClelland, the deceased leading light in this field, rejected approaches by any number of these people over the years wanting his name on their books and tapes.

But one person McClelland did respect, and I do too, is the only name mentioned positively twice in this interview: Martin Seligman. Unlike the Dr. Phils and Dr. Lauras, Dr. Seligman is a renowned research psychologist, like myself specializing in personality. I am not surprised that Ms. Niesslein liked him; he knows what can work and what is unlikely to work. Indeed, one of his books is called, simply enough, What You Can Change, What You Can't -- which sums up the reality of managing yourself nicely! As a psychologist, a consultant, and a sort of self-help author myself (on tapping motivational research to motivate writing -- see link), I recommend him highly. And I think I'll be buying Ms. Niesslein's book soon, as I want to support someone who can help people understand the smoke and mirrors surrounding most of these shills.

Most people looking to self-help books are helpless already or they wouldn't be looking only to those particular books.

These are basically the same type of people whom hire a life coach, a fitness geru and hire dog trainers who specifically reward dogs with food all the time....dog treats which they eventually try to sell you.

15 years ago, these same type of people were hiring astrologists and tarot card readers.

I channel surfed to an Oprah show last night - I'm not sure if I was watching something pretty old or a rerun from earlier the same day. There were several overweight women on stage who were either about to start a "best life" (I think?) type program or were already on it.

And at one point all I could think to myself is that Oprah has gone nuts, completely desperate to make sure others are desperate -- because there was one overweight woman on there saying she's happy, she's got a boyfriend, she's fine -- and Oprah practically threw a fit shouting her down that no, she's not happy, she's got a big problem she doesn't want to face.

It was shocking bullying, and the woman finally went into appeasement mode, assuring Oprah that yes, indeed, she must need help.

Oprah, go build a school somewhere.

REALLY, really weird television.