Self-help and Self-improvement
Can self-help books help you to become a better you? Presented by Laurie Taylor.
Thinking Allowed · BBC Radio 4
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Show Notes
Self-help & self-improvement. As thoughts turn to resolutions and making a fresh start in 2015, Laurie Taylor wonders if his scepticism about self-help books and self-improvement programmes is well founded. He goes for advice to Christine Whelan - Professor in the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin and a self-help author. Further enlightenment is provided by Meg John Barker - Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the Open University - who has studied self-help literature dealing with sex and relationships and has also written what she describes as 'an anti self-help book'. And Rebecca Coleman - Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London - explains how TV makeover shows and online dieting sites create powerfully gendered and class-based messages about changing our bodies.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod.