I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional: The Recovery Movement and Other Self-Help

I have long been frustrated with the self-help movement. To me, all those books out there are saying, "You aren't good enough." And they are written, for the most part, by people who have a limited experience with the wide range of people who might be looking at their book. Writers, in other words, who don't really know what they are talking about.

So I loved finding this book. Although written in the early 1990s it holds true today. Kaminer examines several types of "recovery" movements, then moves into other self-help movements. She examines what the authors are saying and determines that most of them contradict themselves, are not based on clear thinking, and, worst of all, encourage a status of victimhood and dependency. "You can't show more help it." "You need help." "You can't do it alone".

Kaminer is especially ruthless when she discusses how this movement has muddied the waters of what is really abuse. Now any kind of difficulty can be labeled as abuse, as traumatic, "as bad as being in a concentration camp". The notion is absurd but I happen to know someone who has bought exactly this argument about her own childhood, that it was worse than being in a concentration camp. Come on! It's so ridiculous. And Kaminer is not afraid to say so, often with laugh-out-loud humor.

More people need to read this book. It might shake them loose of that feeling that they need someone else to approve what they do, to tell them what to do. show less

A cutting, and often humorous, analysis of the self help and recovery movement. I read it when it came out, and it seems even more relevant now. After all these years I remember the section where she compares a shopaholics anonymous-like meeting to a meeting of Cambodian refugees. Should be read by anyone who takes themselves too seriously.

I really enjoyed this book. Kaminer honestly tells the reader her thoughts and doesn't try to cloud them in some kind of authoritarian mist. She critiques the self help movement without stooping to it's level. Not providing answer but spurring the reader to think for herself by providing questions and insights.