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A Selection of Self-Help Books

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from: Jeffrey Goldberg

Ignoring Prozac

Posted Wednesday, July 14, 1999, at 12:48 PM ET

Dear Enemy, or Emily, or whatever your name is,

There's nothing in my Slate contract that says I have to write about farting, so I'm simply not going there. No sir. Plus--and you know this already--I am a man at perfect peace, spiritually, emotionally, and gastrointestinally, and so I know nothing about farting anyway, except for what I see in the movies.

I noticed that in your last missive you chose not to endorse the book idea that could make us rich. What happened? Are you so spiritual now that the pursuit of a million dollar book advance is beneath you? Or did my idea just bite?

Actually, I got news for you: I spoke again to Howard Cutler's editor--a very kind woman (she's some kind of Buddhist, of course) who refrained from jumping all over me for knocking her author--and she told me that my idea, that happiness is best achieved by making other people happy, isn't actually my idea at all, but the Dalai Lama's, and the Dalai Lama's next book will deal with this very same subject.

Which is bad news for us, because ain't nobody gonna buy a book on happiness and compassion from Goldberg and Yoffe (alright, Yoffe and Goldberg, if you insist) when they could buy the same book from the Dalai Lama.

I couldn't agree with you more that these self-help books are written for basically untroubled people who need to be reminded to smile, or relax, or write thank-you notes, or get their tires rotated. These books are most definitively not for people with genuine troubles. The problem is, I'm afraid that that's who's buying them.

Of the three vexing books on our list, only The Art of Happiness even bothers to address what, to me, is the most remarkable recent development in the cause of mental health, the advent of selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs), the drugs that are marketed under such names as Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil.

"In the most severe cases of anxiety, medication can be a useful part of the treatment regimen," Dr. Cutler writes. "But most of us who are troubled by nagging day-to-day worries and anxiety will not need pharmacological intervention." Am I just being a cynical reporter, or am I onto something when I suspect that Dr. Cutler downplays the fact that millions of people have been aided by drugs that manipulate brain chemistry because he's not selling drugs, but a self-help book? (It should be noted that at least Cutler brings up the subject; no such luck, best as I can tell, in the collected works of Carlson and Vanzant.)

Obviously, Prozac isn't for everyone, but I've seen too many people helped by these drugs (I used to live on the Upper West Side) to wonder if these books aren't doing their readers a disservice by not at least stating at the outset, "Hey, maybe you ought to see a shrink instead of buying this book. Or read Emily Yoffe's 300-word distillation of everything I've said over 300 pages, and then go see a shrink."

One more thing that's been on my mind--what, precisely, is wrong with sweating the small stuff? I love small stuff. Small stuff is great. And remember--a lot of small stuff, rolled together, makes big stuff.

Your thoughts, please.

Peace out,

Jeff

the book club
entries
12345678
from: Jeffrey Goldberg

Ignoring Prozac

Posted Wednesday, July 14, 1999, at 12:48 PM ET
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Self-help books Emily Yoffe is the former "Keeping Tabs" columnist for Slate and a free-lance writer in Washington, D.C. Jeffrey Goldberg, a regular contributor to Slate, is a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine. This week they are discussing these self-help books: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff . and It's All Small Stuff, by Richard Carlson (click hereto buy the book); The Art of Happiness, by the Dalai Lama (click hereto buy the book); One Day My Soul Just Opened Up, by Iyanla Vanzant (click hereto buy the book).
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