1012015 Salt-hlp Srake Oi * d psychotherapy.net fesources to inspire therapists Self-Help Snake Oil and Self-Improvement Urban Legends by Steven Kraus A psychologist's skeptical look at the science (or lack thereof) behind much of the self-help industry, People seeking the help of a psychotherapist almost always do so after trying—and failing—to help themselves. Many have self-medicated, using everything from herbal remedies (e.g., St. John's Wort for depression) to alcohol or other drugs. Still others have tried to enact the psychological advice they sought from friends or family. But many tum to the products and services put forth by what we might call the self- help or self-improvement "industry." It is a large industry indeed. A 2004 study by Marketdata estimated that Americans spend $8.5 billion on self-improvement products and services annually, including over $600 million on self-help books alone. The problem with the self-improvement industry is that it is better described as an unregulated "wild west" rather than staid science. Certainly much of what this industry offers is high quality, and is put forth by reputable psychologists. But in this article we'll focus on the seamier side of this industry, as we explore self-help snake oil and self-improvement urban legends. In particular, we'll focus on how professional psychologists can help the general public, and their clients in particular, separate the good this industry has to offer from the bad and the ugly. As we shall see, fruitful conversations with clients can result from discussing the misperceptions fostered by snake oil, and the deeper truths underlying many psychological urban legends. Repeat after me: "Affirmations don't work. Affirmations don't work." Many self-help books advocate the use of incantations" or "affirmations." Simply repeat phrases such as "I like myself" over and over again, we are told, and soon we will experience an enhanced self-image and boosted self-esteem. This idea is not new. In the 1920s, French pharmacist Emile Coué created an international fad of “autosuggestion” by encouraging everyone to repeat the mantra: "Day by day, in every way, I am getting better and better." Repeating it aloud 20 times each morning and evening was supposed to result in health, wealth, and pretty much whatever else one wanted (it does, after all, specify improvement in every way.") This technique supposedly influenced the unconscious mind, and struck a chord amidst the growing popularization of Freudian psychology. But of course, if this technique worked as advertised, the va: majority of psychotherapists would immediately be out of business, today's epidemic of depression would be easily reversed, and everyone would walk around grinning like Stepford wives. Research clearly demonstrates the many psychological and physical benefits of optimism. The problem is "getting there from here," and affirmations are unlikely to foster an authentic and lasting change from a pessimistic style of thinking to a more optimistic one, The same criticism could be made of Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking, which had a record-setting run on best-seller lists in the 1950s and remains popular today. Few would argue with its basic premise, but today its techniques seem quaint and simplistic (For example, Peale recommended "mind clearing,” which simply meant purging the mind of negative thoughts and replacing them with positive ipsuhwunw psychaterapy.nalarticlolsal-hlp snake 68sos1z0s Sale Sake Ot ones.). Many clients will express some familiarity with the concept of positive thinking, and perhaps some frustration with the ineffectiveness of techniques such as affirmations, Psychologists can use these occasions as segues to discussing the very real benefits of optimism, and the more potent techniques for achieving it such as reshaping one's attributional style, or the types of counter-arguing strategies offered by cognitive-behavioral therapy. Subliminal self-help tapes: Just when you thought affirmations couldn't get easier Self-help snake oil is typically sold with the promise of easy, effortless change. And perhaps the only thing casier than repeating affirmations is listening to someone else repeat them for you. That's the premise behind subliminal self-help tapes, a $50 million industry featuring products that promise to improve memory, enhance workplace performance, aid in weight loss, and make a host of other lifestyle changes. These products are simply affirmations with a high-tech makeover and bigger marketing budgets, and every independent study has shown that these tapes don't work as advertised. In fact, they have only two reliable effects, with the first being removing money from the buyer's pocket and placing it into the second, more psychologically interesting effect is what psychologist Anthony Pratkanis hi illusory placebo effect. Consider one of the studies conducted by Pratkanis and his colleagues. Participants took baseline tests of self-esteem and memory, and then listened to subliminal tapes purported to improve either self-esteem or memory. But here's the twist—half of the participants received tapes that were correctly labeled, while the other half were given mislabeled tapes. In other words, some purported self-esteem-enhancing tapes were labeled as memory improvers, while some tapes that promised to improve memory were labeled as self- esteem enhancers. Everyone was given instructions on how to use the tapes, and each participant was called weekly with encouragement to continue listening to the tapes. Five weeks later, the self-esteem and memory of all participants were measured again.! Consistent with other studies, these tapes did not deliver the benefits their manufacturers had promised, as there was no significant improvement in self-esteem or memory. Although the tapes themselves had no effect, the labels did, Those who listened to tapes labeled as self-esteem enhancers believed their self esteem had improved (in fact, self-esteem remained stable). Similarly, those who listened to tapes labeled as memory enhancers believed their memory had improved (in fact, their memories had not improved). Thus the illusory placebo effect: Like a placebo, the tapes had an effect only because users expected them to have an effect, but the effect was illusory, not real. This study and others like it not only debunk ineffective products, they reveal the insidious nature of self- help snake oil. When people mistakenly believe they have been helped, they fall short of their own potential, and unwittingly aid dubious companies by becoming loyal customers and persuading others to do the same. Nineteenth-century snake oils had similar effects. Many contained a mixture of alcohol and opium known as laudanum, and it pretty much doesn’t matter what's wrong with you—taking alcohol and opium will make you feel better, even though the underlying medical conditions often become worse. It is an important message for psychologists and clients alike: Just because something makes you feel temporarily better doesn't mean it is safe, effective, or does what its proponents claim. For psychotherapists whose clients have tried these products, an opportunity exists to discuss their jeading claims, and contrast them with how psychological change truly happens. A cognitive-behavioral therapist, for example, would likely dismiss the entire premise of reshaping the unconscious mind, choosing to focus instead on conscious thoughts and overt behaviors. In contrast, someone of a more psychoanalytic bent would likely explain that, although unconscious desires are important, psychological change begins with bringing those desires into conscious awareness, a process not facilitated by subliminal affirmations. ipsuhwunw psychaterapy.nalarticlolsal-hlp snake 261012015 Salt-hlp Srake Oi The Eat Popcorn/Drink Coke study: A fictitious study can't create an international uproar . . . can it? How do marketers sell self-help snake oil? By using the "supporting" research from self-improvement urban legends. Subliminal self-help tapes are often sold on the basis of an infamous study conducted in the mind 1950s, in which advertising "expert" James Vicary supposedly exposed thousands of New Jersey movie-goers to the subliminal messages Eat Popcorn and Drink Coke. Vicary claimed dramatic results: an 18-percent increase in Coke sales and a 57.5-percent inerease in popcorn sales. Even more dramatic were the results outside the movie theater. After the study was publicized, several nations outlawed subliminal advertising, and the US Federal Communications Commission threatened to strip the broadcast license of anyone using it, In less than one year after the results were announced, nearly half of Americans had heard of subliminal advertising; by the 1980s, that figure had risen to nearly 80 percent, with two-thirds of those believing it could be efiective in shaping behavior. By the mid-90s, subliminal advertising achieved a pop culture mainstream double-whammy—Saturday Night Live and beer commercials—with Kevin Nealon's character Subliminal Man. Today, an online search for "subliminal advertising" yields over 280,000 hits, with "eat popcorn drink coke" yielding over 60,000. And although the first few online results clearly debunk the study, many of these Intemet sources present the study as valid evidence for the effectiveness of subliminal self-help products. There are many "footnotes" to this study that never gained the notoriety of the original—particularly the fact that Vicary recanted. Sort of. In 1962, he admitted that the study wasn't quite as good as advertised (pun intended): "We hadn't done any research, except what was needed for filing for a patent, I had only a minor interest in the company and a small amount of data—too small to be meaningful. And what we had shouldn't have been used promotionally." This carefully worded "non-admission admission" stops short of acknowledging the study as an outright fraud, and opens a loophole that many snake-oil-peddling web sites use to question the sincerity of Vicary’s recantation. But even more damning have been the repeated failures to replicate Vicary's dramatic results, Precisely replicating Vicary's methodology wasn't easy, given that his study was never published in a scientific journal, and the most detailed description of its methodology was in a 1957 issue of Senior Scholastic—a magazine written for junior-high students. But that didn’t stop researchers from conducting hundreds of similar studies, virtually all of which conclude that subliminal messages have no significant effect on behavior at all. Although carefully controlled laboratory studies may be most persuasive to scientists, perhaps it is a pair of naturalistic field studies that best illustrate the point. In 1958, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation subliminally flashed the message "Phone Now" 352 times during one of their programs. Not only was there no increase in calls, but when viewers were later asked to guess the message, most reported being hungry or thirsty. Apparently Vicary's subliminal messages of Eat Popcorn and Drink Coke shaped behavior after all —they created a placebo effect that was felt years later and a country away. Remarkably, police in Wichita, Kansas conducted an almost exact replica of this study 20 years later. Desperate for a break in the hunt for the publicity-hungry murderer known as the BTK Killer, police instructed a local television station to subliminally flash the message "Now Call the Chief" during a news broadcast. Unfortunately, no one called, and another 30 years passed before police made an arrest in the case. Like all great urban legends, the story of the Eat Popcorn/Drink Coke study captured the public imagination despite the evidence largely because it conveyed a message that people were particularly ready to hear. The Zeitgeist of the late 1950s was characterized by Cold War paranoia and the fear that science was being used for negative purposes. Movies like The Manchurian Candidate depicted brainwashed assassins whose ipsuhwunw psychaterapy.nalarticlolsal-hlp snake a6