My biggest problem with self-help is that it often prioritizes guidelines over general understanding. “Do this,” instead of “here is how it might work based on what little we monkeys actually know.”

This is particularly clear in psychology. I’ve read a bit of Jung and Adler a few years ago, just to get a sense of what our modern psychology is based on, and let me tell you- these people were waaaay less conclusive than your average Psychology Today blog post. Like, I don’t remember finding a single practical guideline in those books. Not a consumer-grade guideline at least.