Does self-help really help?

Re “Self-help’s big lie,” Current, Jan. 1

Steve Salerno ignores the fact that there are those of us in the real workaday psychology world looking to put professional tools in the hands of the lay public.

Take Dr. Gerhard Andersson, who recently proved that a professionally devised, cognitive-behavioral self-help program helped people significantly reduce depression. Or me, for instance, who just published a professionally devised, psychoanalytic self-help manual.

There are about 20 million clinically depressed people in this country. Without forging ahead in the direction of new methods as adjuncts to psychotherapy and medication, how will we handle this epidemic?

Professionals who are providing public access to self-applied versions of mental health tools are endeavoring in the spirit of the old proverb: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

FARRELL SILVERBERG PHD

Philadelphia

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Wow, what a revelation: Self-help advocates put unrealistic notions in our heads, not unlike infomercial peddlers, preseason sports prognosticators, Internet porn stars and presidents who lead us into war. So what else is new?

PATRICK BREEN

San Diego