Sham: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless

Sham: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless Steve Salerno. New York: Crown Publishers, 2005.

A sham, the dictionary tells us, is something that is not what it purports to be; a spurious imitation. Steve Salerno, a Canadian journalist who covers American life and pop culture, calls sham a stealth weapon, and applies it to an acronym: Self-Help and Actualization Movement, or SHAM. He applies it to the Self-Help Movement, which makes America helpless. We are, he fears, hopelessly hooked on help.

Self-help is everywhere, and yet nowhere. We do know one thing it has done -taken our money. Spilling over into every area of American social conduct, Salerno claims that day-to-day living, the home, workplace, educational system, medicine cabinet, and mating dance are victims of sham. Now it has entered the health-care business, trying to convince us that we can cure ourselves through "sheer application of will."

Sham has invaded, the New York Times reports, kitchen cupboards, medicine chests, gym bags, and countless...