Understand why men are from Mars? Why women love too much? Or do you just want to change your life in 48 hours?

Welcome to the murky world of self-help publications, where there are no losers, only winners;

where high self-esteem can elevate you to a position of leadership; where a positive attitude can heal all illness; where all your dreams can be realised; where true love and complete fulfilment are just around the corner if only you can shed your old self and harness the energy of the crystals, and get your meridians back in balance. And you . . . yes, you . . .

can be head of your company in no time at all. You can do anything you want, you only have to write it on a scrap of paper and send it out to the universe. The only problem is that if everyone aims to become the chief executive, who's left to answer the phones and mop the floors?

"Self-help is definitely a growing market, " says Maria Dickenson, book-purchasing manager at Eason's bookshops.

"People like to turn to self-help books for reassurance about their lives. Nowadays life is so much more complicated, so these books give a sense of hope. People also like to read them because it's time dedicated to yourself.

"Some of the most popular books we sell are from the selfhelp section, such as You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus by John Gray, and It's Called a Break-Up Because It's Broken by Greg Berendt."

In Ireland, self-help texts represent about 5% of the market, but that figure is set to rise.

"Five percent doesn't sound like a lot, but when you consider that self-help is competing against so many other genres including fiction and educational books, it's a significant chunk of the market, " says Dickenson.

Self-help is big business, particularly in the US, where a lot of it originates, resulting in sales of over $6bn every year. Lots of people have got rich by writing selfhelp guides, but who are these experts and what, if any, are their credentials?

Dr John Gray, author of one of the most famous self-help books, Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, (which sold seven million copies in the US alone during the first year of publication), actually isn't a medical doctor. In fact he got his PhD back in 1982 from Columbia Pacific University, a non-accredited college in California, which was later shut down by the state. Guru of all gurus, Deepak Chopra makes a fortune selling QLink pendants which supposedly enhance your resistance to ambient radiation from mobile phones! Then there's Dr Phil [McGraw], whom Irish audiences see every afternoon on TV, who was pulled up over his range of 'Shape Up' weight-loss products because the nutritional values on the pack didn't quite measure up when analysed.

According to the self-help industry, if you're not grinning from ear to ear 365 days a year, you're a negative force, with a low aura, whose emotions are blocked. Only positive, happy thoughts are deemed valid, which leaves little room for individuality or healthy criticism.

But what's disturbing about many of these self-help books is the ultra-conservative values which they have a tendency to push. Raising Positive Kids in a Negative World by Zig Ziglar all sounds fine until you start reading into it.

"Best-selling" author Ziglar constantly reiterates that the best career a woman can have is that of homemaker. However, it's okay, in fact it's a good idea, for mom to do a correspondence course, or get out one evening a week and take a night class (in preparation for when the family has grown up and fled the nest), because that will "make you a more attractive conventionalist and companion for your husband, and helps you maintain your excitement as a mother". Ziglar goes on to say that, "Making the family your top priority will bring success. Making it a medium priority will bring a mixture of failure and success. Making it no priority will bring failure, disgrace, and God's judgement. The choice is ours."

Steve Salerno, author of SHAM: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless claims that "ever since America began to wean itself off the sociological junk-food of victimisation and the much-maligned culture of blame, the landscape has been steadily overspread by an antithetical conceit loosely bracketed as 'empowerment' whose preachments can be summarised as follows: Don't let anyone take away your dreams. Everything you need to succeed is right there inside you. Believe it, achieve it."

Interestingly SHAM stands for "Self Help and Actualization Movement". The book takes a good look at the whole self-help industry, revealing just how much money is being made. For example, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, which has sold 1.75 million copies worldwide and 1.5 million DVDs, rocketed to success when UK TV host Noel Edmonds claimed it changed his life. The so-called 'secret' was apparently known to Plato, Da Vinci, Shakespeare, Einstein and Beethoven, and more recently was 'discovered' by Australian TV producer Rhonda Byrne. Basically it's about concentrating madly on the things you want like a new house or car, and then the universe will provide it!

Byrne's The Secret workshops are currently travelling the world. Last week 5,000 Canadians payed the equivalent of 80 per person, to hear one of Byrne's team talk.

"With the gods of empowerment cheering in the background, society has embraced concepts like self-confidence and self-esteem despite scant evidence that they're reliably correlated with positive outcomes, " says Salerno. "The work of legitimate psychology notables Roy Baumeister and Martin Seligman indicates that, often, high selfworth is a marker for negative behaviour, as diagnosed in sociopaths. Furthermore selfesteem may be expressed in the kind of 'I'm fine just the way I am, thank you, ' that actually inhibits personal growth."

Commenting on the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech, where 23-year-old Cho Seung Hui fatally shot 32 of his fellow students, Salerno wonders why everyone is so shocked.

"For more than a generation we've been telling kids, 'You're special! You're amazing! You can be/do/have anything/anyone you want! Never give up your dreams!' And yet we react with such clueless astonishment and wide-eyed horror when kids who've been unusually frustrated in their efforts to find the adulation they deserve act out in rage."

Recognising the dangers of obsessive self-help, Salerno warns about "the overselling of personal empowerment, and the hyping of hope" which he says ultimately can only disappoint.

David Gauntlett, author of Self Help Books and the Pursuit of a Happy Identity' says that the language of self-help and therapy are so widespread that even TV programmes like The Sopranos and NYPD Blue use them, and it's presumed we have a working knowledge of such language.

"Many self-help books suggest ways in which readers can make their narrative of self more strong, coherent and resilient, so they can acquire a greater sense of personal power, confidence and self-direction. These are books for people who lack selfbelief and many of them are aimed at women, " says Gauntlett.

There are books on how to attract a man/woman, books on how to keep them, books on having better sex, on getting out of bad relationships, books on learning to love yourself, books about recovering from depression, marriage breakdown, alcoholism, and of course books on succeeding in life, both socially and materially.

Undoubtedly some self-help books provide sound advice for readers, and there's no denying that positive thinking is far better than pure pessimism. Dr Eamon Shanley, lecturer in Mental Health at UCD, says that self-help literature can in fact be very useful. "Self-help books can take the onus of responsibility from doctors and other experts, and help people to find and use the coping strategies they have within themselves. They can read about other people in similar situations and use their own resources.

"However when it comes to what you read, it's important to be selective and find out what's good and what's not, " advises Dr Shanley.

But faced with literally thousands of different titles, it can be difficult if not impossible to source good self-help books.

Beware of anyone whose credentials are that of 'leading spiritual writer', like Gill Edwards (no relation! ), author of Wild Love.

"If we could just walk up to every person we meet and say 'I'm wild about you', if we could just embrace every circumstance and condition in our lives and say 'I'm just wild about this'. If we could look into every mirror and say 'I'm wild about you too', we could change our lives and coincidentally our world, overnight."

Edwards got the call of the divine feminine while staring at a statue of the Virgin Mary on Mount La Verna in Italy, after which her marriage fell apart when she met a new man . . . whom she had been with in previous lives!

10 titles to change your life. . . or not

Date Like a Man: What Men Know and are Afraid You'll Find Out by Myreah Moore.

Women Who Love Too Much by Robin Norwood

Cutting Loose: Why Women Who End TTheir Marriages Do So Well by Ashton Applewhite.

Codependent No More by Melody Beattie

The Rules - Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider

He's Just Not That Into You by Greg Berendt

It's Called A Break-up Because It's Broken by Greg Berendt

Business Dad: How Good Businessmen Can Make Great Fathers by Tom Hirschfeld.

She Wants a Ring - And I Don't Want To Change a Thing: How a Man Can Overcome His Fears of Commitment by James Douglas Barron.

Awaken the Giant Within You by Anthony Robbins

Believe it. . . or not

LOUISE Hay (right), author of 'You Can Heal Yourself', tells readers what causes various illness, despite having no medical background. A bestseller which again has given rise to Louise Hay workshops all over the world, including Ireland, 'You Can Heal Your Life' claims that all illness comes from your beliefs/mindset, and that cancer is the result of shyness. Feelings that cannot be expressed 'eat you alive' . . . ie, result in cancer. People with lung disease are too 'restrained' while those born with a disability really just have a subconscious need for extra attention.

As a spin-off of the books, there are seminars, and online healing "services", which promise to share the seven, five or nine secrets to happiness. All you have to do is get out your credit card and spend around 70 an hour to talk online with guru Karim Hajee whose Creating Power System has changed thousands of lives . . . not to mention having relieved them of their hard-earned money.

Karim tells us about Amanda, a woman who was trapped in a job she hated surrounded by negative, angry people. After just two weeks on the programme she had a new job, and lo and behold by week four she had met the man of her dreams, who of course she's since married.

Dr Tony Quinn, who is actually a butcher by trade and not a 'doctor' of anything, runs the Educo workshops.

Held in exotic locations such as the Bahamas, and costing several thousand euro, Quinn claims that "through this course you can discover for yourself that there is truly a force, a power, an intelligence, an energy inside you and if you are prepared to work with it and not against it, your life can become one of abundance".