self-help

He listens to self-help tapes and goes out with coworkers for karaoke, where he belts out Atomic Kitten’s girl-group smash “Whole Again” without a trace of irony or self-consciousness.

There were more self-help books, including How to Survive Christmas, and The Common Years: a brilliantly observed look at the time when she lived by and walked on Putney Common.

Dozens of self-help books and therapy sessions later, I’m still on the prowl for something that makes sense of it all.

Among those characters is a damaged male self-help guru played by Tom Cruise in a big-swing performance he has never quite topped before or since.

But much of what they are spouting is self-help, internet based, anecdotal nonsense.