I think that the problem some of the critics have, may be given to a misunderstanding concerning selfishness. Many people believe it is wrong to be selfish and self-help is all about being aware of ourselves. If they could understand that the meaning of selfish is outdated in the dictionary perhaps they would be a little less self-centered with their views. There is a fine line in being, selfish and self-centered even though definition is similar. I think it is the outlook with regard to this issue that has many trying to dissuade self-help. I just wrote an article concerning this issue on my blog and would love to hear your comment.

As for learning from the critics rather than responding to them, right now I think the tack I’m taking at DevInContext is necessary because the critiques of personal development (at least as far as I’ve seen) tend to be so ridiculing and tend to treat the field as if it has no value whatsoever and is all a scam. Once the merits of personal growth are more fully understood, at least in my opinion, there will be more room to debate about the details of what it should include.

An excellent post.

The problem with many critics is that they don’t identify a negative trend within the personal growth industry, or the potential dangers in an idea. Instead, they assume that the negatives define the whole, and that the dangers are inevitable.

I enjoy listening to the critics to gain a better understanding of personal growth, and its “dark side” (which Melissa has dealt with over here). In fact, I often take a critical look at some of the ideas being preached in our community, and wrote about 7 popular ideas that can ruin our lives (#4 might be Melissa’s favorite :P).

An example of where the critics might have a valid point – but haven’t expressed it well enough – is the idea of “blaming the victim.” It’s not the responsibility ethic that encourages this attitude, but ideas like The Law of Attraction, where you are seen as being responsible for causing the problems you face (e.g. birth defect, abusive parent, being hit by a drunk driver, etc), rather than having the responsibility to deal with the problems.

Rather than respond to the critics, it might help to explore what possible merits their points have, and see what we can learn from them to improve our community. Their criticisms might not speak about the entire field of personal growth, but may point out important problems we’re overlooking.

For example, I suspect you’d agree that, if X’s parents teach X that he can’t succeed at anything, X is probably less likely to try to start a business than someone who was taught that anything is possible for them. Why would X even try if he *thought* succeeding was impossible?

The question then becomes: is it possible to work with a person who’s learned such lessons, and is locked into such patterns of thinking, so that they develop a worldview that serves them better? If your answer is no, then personal development, including psychology, positive thinking, etc. probably has no value. But I wonder whether you’d take it that far.

That doesn’t mean we aren’t responsible. The difference is that what we are responsible for is behavior, what we do with our hands, feet and mouth. Take a step back from the whole positive thinking (I’m sorry) scam and consider this. For the most part, we aren’t responsible for what we think and feel. We are for what we do. Does that mean that someone is homeless is at fault for it? Not necessarily. But, to the best of that person’s ability, responsibility for behavior is still there. That’s how I view response-ability.

Hi Evan — true, I’m sure we can find personal development writers who will say just about anything, given the breadth of the field.

Hi Heidi — glad to hear you enjoyed the article.

Hi Cory — I know there are some yogis who say that, in our true nature, we are simply “the Witness” — we watch the events happening in the world, the thoughts and emotions arising in the body/mind, and so on, but we don’t control them. I agree that this view would seem to be consistent with a strong (perhaps extreme) external locus of control. I’ve read Tolle’s books and I’m not sure whether he fully endorses this view.

As for politics, I agree with you that, according to my understanding of the psychological research, having an internal locus of control doesn’t appear to dictate a person’s specific political views, but it does make them more likely to become involved in the political process — simply because they believe that their actions are more likely to have an effect on events in the world.

Some critics, who usually come from the left — Barbara Ehrenreich and Micki McGee, for example — argue that, by promoting a sense of personal responsibility, self-development teachings foster right-wing political views, but (like you, I think) I believe this argument is mistaken. Left-wingers who want to see more redistribution of wealth, for instance, wouldn’t benefit from a society where people tended toward an external locus of control — because people with such an orientation wouldn’t see any point in trying to change the status quo.

The core takeaway from Power of Now is that the “false/non-existent” ego produces nonsense, such as emotions and useless thoughts, that you must be able to rise above in order to live an enlightened life of nothingness.

Someone correct me if I’m wrong.

Beliefs that have no semblance of self or even existence can’t be anything but centered around an external LOC. I’m admittedly not familiar with yogic beliefs, so I don’t know if Tolle bases his book on them.

As far as politics go, I think it has to be kept separate from self-development and/or spirituality. As you showed in your other article on devincontext, those with an internal LOC are more likely to participate in politics, but what kind of politics? Are they going to run for a local seat or are they going to bomb an embassy? Do they believe that power should be shared or that power is naturally hierarchical? Politics is such a vast and complicated field that it must be compartmentalized outside of personal growth. But then again, maybe there’s a connection that I’m not seeing. Are those with internal LOC more liberal and those with external LOC more conservative? Anyway, as I may have just illustrated, it’s hard to be unbiased in a political conversation.

I’m not very versed in spirituality and I’m especially skeptical about those who live by a set of written spiritual laws. However, I wouldn’t ever condemn someone for their spiritual beliefs, because I think a lot of communities that do good in the world are formed from people of a shared faith. I also believe that communities can be formed that do good in the world who have no spiritual faith, but this would definitely be less accepted. People would wonder what the agenda is, if not spiritual faith.

When it comes to self-development on a whole, I think this article proves that it’s important to know what category you fall into. Lumping together Tony Robbins, Dr. Phil, Buddha, Dr. Drew, Melissa Karnaze, etc into one big category called “self-development” is like doing the same to Al Gore, Kim Jong Il, and Sarah Palin as “politics.”

There need to be clear lines of separation, and I think this blog has the potential to take the lead on that front.

Also, I particularly liked what you said along the lines of “blame the politician but do something about it.” Sometimes the critics say that the ethic of personal responsibility is anti-political, because it supposedly teaches people that they don’t need the government or politics to help solve their problems. However, there’s more psychological research to the effect that people with an internal locus of control are more likely to participate in politics, by voting, lobbying, and so on. In fact, people who think outside forces create their circumstances are *less* likely to bother voting. I go into more detail about this at http://www.devincontext.com/2010/03/the-responsibility-ethic-part-5-the-politics-of-responsibility/.