Many years ago when I was first trained as a clinical psychologist, patients’ interest in self-help books was often viewed as a cheap substitute for psychotherapy, and their requests for book recommendations was sometimes deemed a form of resistance to therapy.  In my own memory it was the world of alcoholism treatment, and then the 1980s explosion of interest in adult children of alcoholics, that opened the door to what is sometimes called “biblio-therapy”.

Things have certainly changed, and now, according to a study by psychologists at the University of Scranton, 85% of psychologists polled found that their patients/clients reported benefitting from self-help books, and 57% said the same of autobiographies.  Reviewing these results recently in The Register Report, a periodical for psychologists, the researchers have provided a list of the Top 50 Rated Self-Help Books and the Top 50 Rated Self-Help Autobiographies, for issues including grief, depression, bipolar disorder, substance abuse, codependency, eating disorders, anxiety, parenting, and more.

Jeff Fortgang, PhD

As a clinician at LCL, I recurrently have the opportunity to meet lawyers who present with exceptional academic backgrounds, who have excelled in their careers, and who have shown impressive vision and determination in their professional lives.  Even so, the matters bringing them to me are reminders that depression, addiction, attention deficit, anxiety, and the like are equal-opportunity problems, and that these individuals are no more immune from them than those whose backgrounds are less extraordinary.

One reason for that is the fact that different parts of our brains are, in some respects, at war with one another.  Rationality, decision-making, goal-directedness, etc. are functions that seem to go on mainly in the prefrontal cortex, a part of the cerebrum that is uniquely evolved in humans, and we’d like to think that we employ our cognitive capacities to control our lives.  But the fact is that much of our behavior is affected strongly by the limbic system, where we find the influence of emotion and reward.

Lawyers seek to live professionally in the prefrontal cortex, which is essential in the practice of law.  But they are human beings as well, and subject to the powerful behavioral impact of feelings (whether or not these are acknowledged) and reward states (such as those that can be unnaturally elevated by alcohol and other drugs of abuse).   Thus, we find highly intelligent, accomplished individuals, who have tried to apply their reasoning skills to problems of emotion or addictive behavior only to see these difficulties worsen.

We all have to recognize that there is much of life over which we have little or no control, and that when it comes to those parts of our experience we will probably benefit most from (a) acceptance of our human limitations and (b) willingness to make honest connections to others as sources of help.

Jeff Fortgang, PhD