The Ethical Self-Help Author, #1

This week, I want to talk about the unique ethical responsibilities of self-help, psychology, and spirituality authors.

Self-help and spirituality authors wield tremendous influence over their followers—who not only read their books, but often follow their social media, sign up for their classes, and attend their live events.

Big Influence = Big Responsibility

If you are a successful self-help or spirituality author, your readers will be making significant life decisions based on your advice. Real, actual people might be changing their diet, starting or stopping a specific treatment for a mental or physical health condition, ending a relationship, or taking up a daily practice because you recommended it.

At a bare minimum, you want to make sure the advice you’re giving isn’t going to harm your readers’ physical or mental health, and this isn’t always as easy as it seems. (More on this in a later post!)

The most ethical self-help and spirituality authors also consider whether their advice will have a positive impact on the wider community and the health of the planet. For example, a self-help book that shows the reader how to become irresistibly charming may be “good” for that person, but a disaster for the people who are now vulnerable to that person’s irresistible charms.

Shaping Beliefs

In addition to all these practical changes, your readers will also be adjusting their mindset and beliefs in response to what you tell them. For example, they may come away with the belief that “everyone creates their own reality”; or they may come away with a renewed appreciation for the interconnectedness of life and the importance of service to the poor and oppressed.

Highly ethical self-help and spirituality authors think through the implications of the message they’re teaching. For example, if everyone is creating their own reality, what about starving children? Are they, too, creating their own reality? Do governments and economic policies really have nothing to do with this whatsoever? 

Thinking through the implications of your message can help you weave in the necessary nuance, instead of presenting your readers with a one-size-fits-all claim.

A Golden Opportunity

If you multiply these effects by thousands, tens of thousands, or even millions of readers, it becomes clear that a single self-help or spirituality author can have a serious impact not only on the lives of individual readers, but on the culture as a whole.

By shaping a truly ethical, benevolent, and well-considered book, you can help individuals live better lives, while also nudging the culture in the direction of integrity, equality, and non-harming.

 Are you writing a self-help, psychology or spirituality book? Schedule a free 30-minute consultation with me, and we'll chat about ways to maximize your book's potential to change readers' lives.