Selfishness Matters

Family Therapist questions value of therapy and lampoons Self-Help gurus in new Self-Help parody

Is psychotherapy an exercise in self-indulgent navel gazing? Is the self-help industry helpful, or do people buy self-help books to avoid change? Theo Selles explores these questions and more in the self-help parody book, Selfishness Matters.

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PRLog (Press Release) - Dec 02, 2010 - Selfishness Matters

Along the lines of the Colbert Report and the Daily Show, and available at www.selfishnessmatters.com, Selfishness Matters offers biting social commentary as it skewers the self-help industry. As the story goes, Theo Selles, a Family Therapist of close to 20 years, channels a mysterious pompous entity known as “The Big Fill” whom he first encounters while taking a bath and contemplating the essential meaninglessness of life. From there things get crazier as The Big Fill, through Theo, instructs the world on “How to live your life completely right”. Based on the principle of selfishness, The Big Fill provides instruction on topics such as: “How to get what you want without having to care; How to win at marriage counseling; How to make the universe love you; How to maximize the profitability of your offspring; How to defeat your parasitic inner child, and how to build your defense mechanisms and learn how to use them to beat other people down.”

But before the reader is blessed with those teachings, The Big Fill tells us about his own tortuous path of self-discovery; a path that careens through the Sahara Desert, desperate attempts to appease a drunken father, an encounter with a Wisdom Frog, and an unfortunate poodle fixation.

Aside from the hysterically funny outrageous skewering, there is a point to the story. The author notes that, from his perspective, people are inclined to be selfish, and that the last thing that’s needed is more self-focus. Self-help gurus capitalize on people’s desire to focus more on themselves by selling books oriented to more naval gazing rather than looking outwardly to improve the lives of others. Theo observes that in his years of offering marriage counseling, he never hears two people ask how they can love each other better, despite that being the only way for people to get the full benefits of the counseling. He ends with a call for an “other-help” movement, and dreams of an “other-help” area in Chapters.

Selfishness Matters will have you laughing out loud, while challenging you to examine the degree of selfishness in your own relationships. The book invites accountability through outrageous but fact-based examples of how people treat each other in ways that serve their own interests, but manages to do so without coming across as pedantic.

One reader’s feedback to the author: “Your book is over-the-top insane. I have been laughing myself silly while shaking my head at your utterly horrible advice. Imagine if some fool decided to take you seriously! I especially enjoyed the parenting section. Still reading...the shock is too great to put the book down.”

Theo Selles is a Family Therapist of close to 20 years. He has advanced training in areas such as Sex Therapy and Trauma/Crisis Debriefing and Intervention. Theo’s business, Integrity Works, specializes in increasing organizational productivity through fun, interactive, values-based teambuilding. He is an accomplished public speaker and recently served as the Master of Ceremonies for Toronto’s International Day for People with Disabilities. His book Selfishness Matters — “A Self-Help book even a man would read” is available for anyone who would love a good laugh at themselves and at relationship “experts” who take themselves far too seriously. It is available at www.selfishnessmatters.com and has its own Selfishness Matters facebook page. Theo can be reached at 647-686-0116 and at tselles@integritywks.ca.

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About Selfishness Matters: Selfishness Matters is a self-help parody book written by Family Therapist Theo Selles. The book lampoons self-help gurus while calling for more “other-help” and “other-love” as opposed to continued focus on self. Outrageous and controversial, and designed to have a bit of offensiveness for pretty much everyone, Selfishness Matters provides a mix of comedic relief and sobering insight. Readers will laugh, but also be confronted by the degree of selfishness in their own relationships. Selfishness Matters also provides a revealing look at what actually happens in counseling between couples and offers a starkly honest view of the competition for love that occurs in relationships. Most of all, Selfishness Matters is hysterically funny; a book the likes of which has not been seen before.

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