I loved this book. It is the book to go to if you have doubts about self-help philosophy. In this book he critically examines it using rational and scientific analysis.
While self-help principles have faced criticism before, Paul Pearsall is the first psychologist to tackle all the central issues it in one reasonably consise book.
The Last Self-Help Book You'll Ever Need stands out from typical debunking books by offering more than just skepticism.
Pearsall presents a series of positive, thought-provoking, and contrarian principles.
These principles aim to genuinely help people live a more fulfilling and meaningful life — the “Good Life.”
Let us see what the book says regarding some basic and major concerns that people have.
THE BOOK
You have to love yourself before you can love others.
The book presents this as narcissism.
MY COMMENT
Narcissism is when you value yourself over others. It risks hurting others and you get hurt top for nobody else thinks you are better than they are.
It is an exaggeration of self-worth.
Having a sense of self-worth means you think yourself worthy of being in a good relationship with others and they with you. You will be no good to others without self-worth.
Narcissism creeps in under the guise of something else and grows. It can certainly start with self-worth aspirations or hide underneath them. What if you assess yourself as deserving friends no matter what good or harm you have done? If part of you deep down thinks you do not deserve anybody and you are suppressing that then what? There is a conflict between your conviction that you deserve nobody and that you do. Narcissism involves thinking that you are entitled to what you are not. Narcissism, perhaps in some clever form, has to appear.
Narcissism seems to arise anyway though. You can only hope it will grow slowly so that you will be in the ground before it flourishes completely.
We must dismiss the notion that it might not be that bad to be a bit of a narcissist for that implies that the notorious narcissists are going too far or they are narcissist in the wrong way. If narcissism is embraced in a way that enables you to bring joy and help to others it is not to be knocked.
To think in those ways makes you fuel the narcissism of others even if not your own. The human person can live through others. If you do not have the guts to be a brazen narcissist, you will get others to live that for you. It is an outlet for the darkness in you.
I would add that it is no coincidence that belief in God involves thinking and feeling that he is better than anybody else. And even to the extent that if hypothetically if it had to be God or people, you would sacrifice people. Your human instinct to preserve your kind is erased at least in that direction. That is not natural and there is something going on there, it has to be some kind of transference.The principle as cited by the book should work. What if you try it and find you think you are better than others? Then it is not that there is a fault with the principle. It is still right and precious for it should work. It would be or could be worse without it.
If the principle is interpreted as, "I must feel that I am great and number one then I can love others" that is clearly narcissism.THE BOOK
The dangers of high self-esteem are supposedly:
The person with high self-esteem may look down on others in order to keep feeling good.
The person with high self-esteem will be enraged should anybody or anything pose a threat this high self image. Some people are too proud to be able to endure criticism. They will bully or silence critics and be devastated at hearing the truth about themselves.
MY COMMENT
You don't need high self-esteem for these traits. They can happen with low self-esteem.And there are some nasty traits that appear whether you have self-esteem or not. They could be happening in many cases in spite of high self-esteem.If it is true that you need to love yourself before you can give enough love to others, it may be that these risks are not big enough or happening enough to justify jettisoning the principle. They could be seen as side-effects to be managed. And most people with high self-esteem are not obnoxious or trying to live like islands.It is hard or near impossible to maintain self-esteem without getting regard from others. You are not seeing your value in their eyes.And you can look down on others and fear critics without harming anybody.And if your high self-esteem is genuine, you should not fear somebody criticising you or telling you that you are wrong. If they are a nasty critic, you know that they are trying to cut you down for they see something wonderful in you. If they are a constructive critic then they compliment you by indicating that you have the dignity and ability to be more wonderful than you are. Take both types the right way and as encouragement to address the problem you were criticised for.If you have a problem, you need to know what the problem is. If the problem is not your self-esteem, then don't drop your self-esteem when you are criticised. Find the real problem.
THE BOOK
The book says that when somebody close to you dies, in time, it becomes harder
to remember their voice and smell and exactly how they looked. The author
recommends forgetting about all those things and try to experience closeness to
the person's consciousness, to their core.
MY COMMENT
It seems to me that this will happen naturally. Our brains can be shaped by those who are around us, they have a literal physical effect. That is why a grieving person will feel their dead partner is literally in the house somewhere alive. The brain has grown to reach out to the person and they are not there and it acts like it does not know they are gone.
Naturally, people feel that dead people are still alive and somehow with them day and night and in their hearts. The dead person is effectively like the Holy Spirit in Christianity. They hear you, walk invisibly with you and you pray to them. They live inside you giving you grace to live a better life.
This comes up against the Christian teaching that you must only have one God. The people will deny their departed loved ones are now Gods, but their actions show different. We know they want them to be. We know they tend to make them Gods. We know they would hide this for it is embarrassing to make it too obvious.
Those who have lost someone special can feel their presence. I see no reason why somebody who feels there is no life after death should. It is not about the person being somehow alive but being somehow still connected to them. It could be like a time warp.
It is far better to feel connected say with a dead friend by feeling that in some way you are going shopping with her just the way you used to than it is to imagine her disembodied post-death self hovering near you. It is more natural and rational. And it honours the memories and turns them into precious tools that can help you live your life after your loss. So drop the spiritualism and get into this psychological time warp construct.
AMAZON REVIEW SUBMITTED 17 JUNE 2025