Skilling communication: The discourse and metadiscourse of communication in self-help books

ABSTRACT

In the past few decades, self-help books on communication have ranked among the top titles on bestseller lists. Offering advice about improving communication skills in a variety of contexts, they both reflect and promote a widespread discourse about the importance of good communication in everyday life, in what is in fact a paradoxical endeavor – solving flawed communication with more communication. Based on an analysis of 18 bestselling self-help books, the paper examines the meaning of three recurring themes – “listening,” “awareness” and “practice” – and analyzes the paradoxical relationship between what the books say about communication and how they say it. The findings serve to illuminate the relationship between communication and metacommunication more broadly, which, in turn, helps to explain the conditions by which authors express their ideas – their selection of textuality, despite, and precisely because of, its difference from oral talk.

KEYWORDS:

• communication culture
• communication skills
• communication theory
• metacommunication
• self-help

Introduction

In 1859, a London doctor, Samuel Smiles, self-printed a book that was the first modern publication of its sort, and the one whose title gave the genre its name. The book, Self-Help, contains advice, stories and aphorisms attributed to the rich and successful, and it underscores the belief that sufficient determination can overcome all external circumstances. Responding to the industrial revolution, Smiles expressed his generation’s hopes and concerns regarding rapid technological advancements, in particular the new means of communication. “This is an age preëminently distinguished for the facilities which it affords for human intercourse and the spread of knowledge,” he wrote, adding:

In travelling, telegraphing, printing, and postal communications, it surpasses every other. Tons upon tons of machine-made paper are constantly being converted into machine-printed books and machine-printed newspapers, which are spread abroad at a marvellously low price.

(Smiles, 1863, p. 337)

Smiles considered this new reality a mixed blessing. “It doubtless furnishes unprecedented facilities for learning many things easily and without effort,” he noted. “At the same time it probably tends rather toward superficialism than depth or vigor of thinking” (Smiles, 1863, p. 338). Little of Smiles’ spirit of toil outlived the Victorian era, but echoes of his concern that manufacturing districts were also producing “a sort of mechanical human beings [sic] almost as devoid of individuality of character as the machines they watch” (Smiles, 1863, p. 338) are replete in today’s self-help books. These texts, however, are a product of modernism no less than a response to it, regarding the self as an object of improvement. They promote ideals of efficiency and success, and are themselves a mass-produced commodity disseminated within an elaborate and intricate cultural industry.

Smiles was himself responsible for the conversion of “tons upon tons of machine-made paper” into “machine-printed books.” Self-Help was translated into a multitude of European languages and several others, and by 1905 it had sold an estimated quarter of a million copies (Fielden, 1968). In retrospect, however, Self-Help‘s success is modest compared with that of more recent bestsellers in the field. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus (Gray, 1992), for instance, has sold more than 50 million copies in 50 languages and was the leading best-seller of the 1990s (Gauntlett, 2008). It has been estimated that a total of half a billion self-help books were sold throughout the 20^th century (Butler-Bowdon, 2003), and that the current annual market of the self-help industry amounts to approximately $10 billion (Cederström & Spicer, 2017).

Self-help books became tremendously popular despite their inherent contradiction: on the one hand, they address individuals as self-made people, and on the other, they offer external resources for improvement. In the case of self-help works dealing with communication, this tension is perhaps even more pronounced, since communication is considered both the deepest expression of an authentic self and a primary tool in social relations. Nevertheless, various notions about communication have been part of self-help books from the start (see Woodstock, 2005). Beginning in the 1970s, when self-help books achieved prominence both in scope of sales and in cultural impact (Dolby, 2005; McGee, 2005; Philip, 2009), they took a shift toward a more explicit use of the term, adopting a popular-psychological “model of communication” (Illouz, 2008). This model

aims at providing linguistic and emotional techniques to reconcile diverging imperatives: namely to assert and express the self, yet cooperate with others; to understand others’ motives, yet manipulate oneself and others to reach desired goals; and to be self-controlled, yet personable and accessible.

(p. 88)

To a large extent, this model of communication is an example of the conflicting demands and desires expressed in the genre of self-help more generally as well as in other cultural products of the post-industrial, neoliberal Western society. Indeed, critics of self-help books and of similar phenomena have tended to focus on the cultural and sociological aspects of their manufacturing and proliferation as well as on the implicit ideologies they exhibit. Building on these studies but also differing from them, the current paper aims to enrich the analysis by offering a new perspective – that coming from the field of communication theory. Its focus is the theory of communication underlying the books and the way it is presented therein – that is, how self-help books communicate their ideas about communication.

Adopting Krippendorff’s (1994) observation that every theory about communication is also itself communication, and following Fialkoff and Pinchevski’s (2021) analysis of “communication about communication,” the current paper considers books not merely as promoters and representations of notions about “communication,” but its very reification. Self-help books are an example of metacommunication – that is, a form of communication about communication. A closer look, however, reveals that, to a large extent, the books themselves are a form of communication, while their content is metacommunication. They address readers directly, yet they deal less with what is, or what should be said, and more with the external conditions of conversations; not so much with the actual content of messages as with their transmission and reception.

The structure of this paper is as follows. The next section will present an overview regarding the cultural context in which self-help books thrive and of previous critiques of self-help books on communication. This is followed by a review of the methodology applied to the analysis of a corpus of self-help books on communication. The analysis itself examines what these texts say about communication, how they say it, and the relationship between the two. Building on the analysis, the last section of the paper makes the claim that, rather than operating on a separate level, metacommunication is an inseparable part of communication, and may even be the key to the books’ success among readers.

Self-help and the communication culture

Over the past few decades, self-help books on communication have both reflected and served to constitute “communication” as a central notion in Western culture. Typically referring to interpersonal face-to-face interaction (Katriel & Philipsen, 1981), the term has permeated diverse domains from the home to the workplace. So much so, that contemporary Western society has been characterized as a “communication culture” (Cameron, 2000). Scholars have identified various economic, sociological and cultural factors behind this cultural trend. Among them are the weakening of traditional ties to family, community and religion (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, & Tipton, 1985; Giddens, 1992); the internalization of democratic and feminist values within romantic relationships (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 1995; Giddens, 1992); the increased penetration of psychology into corporate culture and popular culture (Illouz, 2007, 2008); the late-modern capitalist shift from locally based production of goods to a global system of services (Cameron, 2000); and the neoliberal commodification (or fetishization) of the self, which is recast as a “bundle of skills” (Urciuoli, 2008).

The communication culture is marked by a large amount of metadiscourse – talk about talk – which is ubiquitous in both professional and private settings (Craig, 2005). In this discourse, “communication” – and key terms associated with it – began to carry specific meanings and connotations and to be practiced in particular settings, in designated institutions, and by specialized practitioners. Katriel and Philipsen (1981) were among the first to distinguish between interactions regarded as “chitchat” or “small talk” and those regarded as “communication” – the latter, an intimate ritual involving problems that are raised, acknowledged, negotiated and resolved. Other scholars examined terms associated with “communication” such as “dialogue” (Carbaugh, 2013; Peters, 1999) or “sharing” (John, 2016). Still others analyzed related cultural institutions and professions such as call-in radio programs (Katriel, 2004), television talk shows (Carbaugh, 1988; Illouz, 2003) and communication experts (Fialkoff & Pinchevski, 2021).

The rise of the communication culture is tied to an increased preoccupation with the self. What Giddens (1991) called “the reflexive project of the self” can be related to the unstable reality of neoliberal politics (Giroux, 2008; Harvey, 2007) and new- and late-capitalism (Boltanski & Chiapello, 2005; Hardt & Negri, 2000; Mandel, 1975; Sennett, 2006). In contrast to traditional capitalism, so the explanation goes, the workplace environment has nowadays become more diffuse and amorphous, with multiple centers of gravity and competing codes of behavior. Consequently, individuals are urged to learn to rely on themselves, to constantly adapt to changes and to become more proactive.

Against this backdrop, good “communication” is vital for professional and personal success. In the workplace, where a goods-based economy has been largely replaced by a service-based economy, the development of communication skills has become necessary in order to cooperate and coordinate within the social network of superiors, peers, and subordinates (Cameron, 2000; Illouz, 2008). Indeed, in recent years communication skills consistently rank high (or even highest) on the list of skills and qualities that employers seek in candidates (Knight, 2020), and are considered relevant in seemingly all occupations – from scientists and engineers (Sharma & Mishra, 2009) to professional boxers (Savucu & Senbakar, 2017).

In romantic relationships – where external obligations of religion and community have largely given way to what Giddens (1992) calls “pure relationships” based solely on individuals’ willingness and satisfaction – the need for communication to express, negotiate and recognize expectations and needs has become crucial. In fact, as Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, and Tipton (1985) have long noted, “communication” has to a large extent become the core of relationship: ”[I]n a world of independent individuals who have no necessary obligations to one another, and whose needs may or may not mesh, the central virtue of love – indeed the virtue that sometimes replaces the ideal of love – is communication” (p. 101). Equally important in marriage as in the corporate world, “communication” can be seen as part of the cultural repertoire of what Illouz (2007) calls “emotional capitalism”: “a culture in which emotional and economic discourses and practices mutually shape each other” (p. 5).

Not surprisingly, then, books on communication skills have become increasingly popular within the self-help genre. Situated in an entrenched neoliberal corporate communication industry, these books promote the moral imperative of keeping personal communication skills in good working order. Books, in other words, offer “communication” as a product provided by experts to solve problems and increase readers’ cultural, social and economic capital. Their utility lies in their ability to help readers create and sustain improved interpersonal relationships. Arguably, the books themselves are a staple commodity of the communication culture, with their widespread success often invoked as proof of their effectiveness, which then serves to further promote sales. The effect of these books exceeds their direct influence on readers. As Woodstock (2007) claims, “self-help discourse reaches far beyond the texts themselves and into popular usage, where they forge an even more powerful and far-reaching shared language about the self, thought and the collective” (pp. 184–185). The cultural significance of these books lies not only in their commercial success but also in their vast influence on contemporary rhetoric in advertising, politics and everyday talk and thought (see Woodstock, 2007, pp. 169–170).

In light of the centrality of the notion of “communication” in self-help books and the important role they play in the communication culture, the limited scholarly attention they have received so far is somewhat surprising. Those few who have studied them have focused not on “communication” per se but rather on its broader sociological context – its relation to, and expression of, selfhood, self-transformation, gender and society. Illouz (2008), for example, analyzed the effect of therapeutic discourse on contemporary notions of identity and self, describing a model of communication that “explains conflict and problems as the result of imperfect emotional and linguistic communication” and that “views adequate linguistic and emotional communication as the key to achieving desirable relationships” (p. 88).

From a similar perspective, Cameron (1994) identifies the inconsistency in advice offered to women as an example of what she terms “verbal hygiene:” when it comes to matters involving career, women are encouraged to be assertive and to “talk like a man,” whereas in romantic relationships they are expected to accept that “it’s different for girls.” In both cases, she argues, instructions reflect and reinforce stereotypes and offer (false) personal remedies to social problems. Along the same lines, Woodstock (2005, 2006, 2007) reviews the discourse, narrative authority, and evolution of positive thinking – which she considers to be “thought as communication” – in self-help books from 1880 to 2000. In consequence of their popularity, she argues, the ostensibly solitary activity of reading becomes a communal behavior in which “communication as cure-all” takes on the attributes of religious practice, relieving pressure and stress, and uniting previously estranged ideas and individuals, but which may also contribute to the very social ills it is said to cure (Woodstock, 2007).

The importance of analyzing self-help books on communication derives not only from their wide influence on the communication culture, but because they themselves are a good case study of metadiscourse. As lengthy texts, these books – more than any other cultural product of the self-help genre, such as tutorial videos – present detailed theories about the notion of communication, its attributes and its personal and social importance. Furthermore, as guides, self-help books emphasize practicality, offering tips, instructions and drills to improve readers’ communication skills. They are thus a salient example of Swidler’s (1986) statement according to which “culture influences action not by providing the ultimate values toward which action is oriented, but by shaping a repertoire or ‘tool kit’ of habits, skills, and styles from which people construct ‘strategies of action’” (p. 273).

Methodology

The study’s sample comprises 18 books¹ published since 1980—the decade in which “communication” was entrenched as a common theme in self-help books (Illouz, 2008, p. 88). In order to ensure an equal share, at least three books were chosen for each decade. The size of the sample was decided based on theoretical saturation (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Since saturation may be reached falsely or prematurely—i.e., a feeling of exhausting the materials may occur before full information was actually extracted (Guest, Namey, & Chen, 2020) – a minimal quota of 15 books was preset, in accordance with quantitative measures suggested by Mason (2010). A comparison was also made with other studies of self-help books, many of which (e.g., Crawford, 2004; Peary, 2014; Philip, 2009), have examined significantly fewer books.

The books that were selected were those written for a general audience that contained considerable discussion of communication (or derivative terms such as “conversation” or “talk”), and that are meant, implicitly or explicitly, to enable readers to implement the authors’ ideas in their own day-to-day lives. An additional condition for inclusion was cultural centrality. The selected books filled all or most of the following criteria: popularity (appearance on the New York Times bestseller list, or sales of more than 500,000 copies); institutionalization (linkage to established treatment techniques, workshop programs or training centers); recipients of academic attention (criticism, validation or refutation); bearers of cultural dominance (e.g., references in movies, sitcoms etc.); and authorship by individuals with high social recognition (e.g., appearing frequently on programs such as the Oprah Winfrey Show).

In addition to these books, many others were examined during the process of detecting and selecting the study’s corpus. While excluded for failing to meet one or more of the above selection criteria, these books nevertheless corroborated many insights from those that were ultimately selected. Similar insights and validations were found in blogs, online forums, reviews, comments and articles on self-help books that echoed and paraphrased many of the ideas written in the books. It is noteworthy that many publications that are categorized in online bookstores or on lists in blogs as books on communication skills do not actually contain substantive content on this topic. Although not analyzed for this study, the abundance of such texts nevertheless underscores the cultural importance attributed to “communication” in contemporary culture.

The selected books were analyzed qualitatively with regard to themes, narratives, rhetoric and style. The first step was identifying themes, defined here as meaningful segments of the texts surrounding a particular idea. This was done by noticing words and ideas that not only appear repeatedly, often in chapter or even book titles, but are also explicitly described as being important. The three themes that recur in all of the books that are analyzed here – “listening,” “awareness,” and “practice” – were examined independently and via “relational analysis” (Robinson, 2011), i.e., the theme’s interconnectedness.

Beyond themes, the texts were examined with regard to their narratives, which, in this case, refer to the books’ reliance on personal stories, and, more generally, to their authors’ self-representation as enlightened, highly skilled practitioners of communication. Finally, the analysis includes an examination of the books’ style and the means by which they address readers, as well as their methods of persuasion and substantiation.

Self-help books

Communication and self

Self-help books tend to focus on a particular aspect of communication, e.g., body language or listening; on a certain communicative domain such as romantic relationships, parenting or career advancement; or on a communicational situation such as negotiations or “crucial conversations.” Admittedly, these differences are important, as one does not talk to a business associate the same way as one does to a romantic partner. In addition, the books were written in different economic, social and cultural contexts. For example, the fact that all three books on relationships reviewed in this article (Gray, 1992; Hendrix, 1988; Tannen, 1990) were published between 1988 and 1992 can be explained as a result of (or a reaction to) the essentialism of the second wave of feminism.

While the following analysis will note variations among the books, this paper will focus more on the similarities between them. This, for two reasons: first, because these differences have already attracted the attention of previous scholars who have examined them via a sociological perspective and categorization; and second, because an initial survey revealed that, despite differences, the books shared a surprisingly similar basic set of attributes of “communication.” Indeed, such a finding attests to overlaps between opposing domains, e.g., the private and the corporate as examined by Illouz (2007).

Not surprisingly, the most basic commonality of these books is their belief that communication is extremely important. “Communication is a Life-or-Death Matter,” begins a book on confident communication (Booher, 2012, p. xi) and another, on the “art and science of relating and communicating” (Alda, 2018 [2017]), states that “people are dying because we can’t communicate in ways that allow us to understand one another” (p. xiii). To be sure, only one of the books (Barker, 2010 [2006]) provides an explicit definition of communication: “the process of creating shared understanding” (p. 8). All, however, distinguish between desired and undesired ways of communicating. The former is described as spoken conversation that is clear, credible, and persuasive; this is associated with qualities such as openness, directness, reciprocity, rapport-building, understanding and dialogue. Conversely, undesired communication is characterized by such things as nagging, criticizing, vagueness, dishonesty, indirectness, misunderstanding and “miscommunication.” Notably, “communication” is described – somewhat tautologically – as a set of skills, as a means of improving these skills and as the desired state of being that comes as a result. Put somewhat differently, it is through communicating that one improves one’s communication skills, thereby achieving “better communication.”

At their most basic level, then, self-help books regard communication as a powerful skill. As Tieger and Barron-Tieger (1998) explain, “with better communication come increased understanding, tolerance and even peace” (6), while Covey (1989) asserts that “communication is the most important skill in life” (p. 237), and Lowndes (2003) concludes that “85% of one’s success in life is directly due to communications skills” (p. 93). Conversely, inept communication is regarded as the primary factor underlying personal problems and underachievement. Gray (1992), for example, states that “unclear and unloving communication is the biggest problem in relationships” (p. 61). In Taylor and Lester’s (2009) formulation, “weak communication skills leave you in a boat without a paddle” (p. 162). Altogether, as Booher (2012) states, “dialogue in our day-to-day lives creates the difference between misery and defeat, on the one hand, and success and satisfaction, on the other” (p. 10). It follows that improving communication is imperative. As Taylor and Lester (2009) claim, “you need to improve your skills, quite simply, because absolutely everyone does” (p. 4).

According to the self-help books, communication is not only a utilitarian tool for fulfilling the needs of the self but, indeed, the very expression of one’s self. “Communication is our lifeblood,” states one book (Taylor & Lester, 2009; p. vii). Similarly, according to Stone, Patton, & Heen (2010 [1999], the primary task of a difficult conversation is “to express what you see and why you see it that way, how you feel, and maybe who you are” (p. 185). It follows that finely honed communication skills can identify the innermost qualities of a person. Some authors go so far as to refer to communication in terms of mind-reading: the author of I Know What You’re Thinking (Glass, 2002), writes that “my awareness of my clients’ outer beings gave me insight into their inner beings, so much so that many of them began to think I was psychic” (p. 5). In the words of the coauthors of a book on personality types,

while no one can really give you x-ray vision, we can provide you with the next best thing—the art of SpeedReading People™—a scientifically validated system that allows you to gain invaluable insights into others by observing a variety of clues relating to their appearance, vocabulary, body language, occupation, education and interests.

(Tieger & Barron-Tieger,1998, p. 4)

Other books, as well, express the notion that verbal and nonverbal communication are the medium through which the self becomes apparent.

In the view of some authors, communication plays an important role in forging the self from early childhood and throughout one’s life. For example, Hendrix (1988), a couples’ therapist, believes that romantic relationships are based on an unconscious desire to reconcile childhood “scars” and “wounds,” and that improved communication can achieve this goal. Likewise, Faber and Mazlish (2012 [1980], whose book focuses on talking to children, note that learning how to communicate with them can positively affect the course of their lives: “we want to break the cycle of unhelpful talk that has been handed down from generation to generation, and pass on a different legacy to our children – a way of communicating that they can use for the rest of their lives, with their friends, their coworkers, their parents, their mates, and one day with children of their own” (p. 194).

A corollary of the link between self and communication is that there are as many different communication styles as there are different selves. According to the self-help books, communication varies between men and women; bosses, employees and coworkers; and people from different cultures or with different personality types. The books stress that different communication styles are equally legitimate, or, as a book on personality types puts it, “all types are needed” (Erikson, 2019 [2014], p. 5). Differences are often described in linguistic terms. Tannen – a linguist by profession – argues that men and women “are speaking different languages – or at least different genderlects” (1990, p. 279). In her book, which is based on her own and on others’ research, she claims that genderlect differences reflect the different social status of men and women. John Gray (1992), who does not cite any sources in his book and who holds an essentialist rather than a social stance, nevertheless shares this belief. In his famous parable, men speak “Martian” while women speak “Venusian.” As a remedy, Gray, and other authors, offer readers “dictionaries,” “translations” or even a “new language” between the covers of their books.

The focus of the books is not so much the sources of differing communication styles as their potentially harmful consequences, which, according to the authors, can be avoided or overcome. However, differences should not be criticized but rather “respected” and “valued,” even “celebrated.” The first step is thus acceptance. As Gray (1992) claims, “relationships thrive when communication reflects a ready acceptance and respect of people’s innate differences” (p. 91). According to the books, this is true not only for romantic relationships. Difficult Conversations (Stone, Patton, & Heen, 2010 [1999]) which, according to its cover, “teaches how to discuss what matters most [with] your boss, your spouse, your friends, your kids, your clients,” asserts in one of its sub-headings, “Not Right or Wrong, Not Better or Worse – Just Different” (p. 151). Similarly, the author of You’re Not Listening asserts that, “it’s by acknowledging and accepting those differences that you learn and develop understanding” (Murphy, 2020, p. 57).

Notwithstanding, the ultimate desired goal is overcoming differences. “When couples master the technique, gender differences diminish,” writes Hendrix (1988, p. 152). In similar fashion, though in the context of office teamwork, Taylor and Lester (2009) claim that “good communication skills can help to iron out conflicts and bring everyone together” (p. 174). Indeed, according to the books, negotiations extend far beyond the personal realm. In his introduction to Stone et al. (2010), Roger Fisher, the former director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, writes:

In this book my colleagues Doug, Bruce and Sheila … provide the stance of mind and heart and the skills of expression needed to achieve effective communication across the gulf of real differences in experiences, beliefs, and feelings, whether in personal relations, business dealings, or international affairs.

(p. viii)

In sum, according to self-help books, our selves are formed by, and expressed in, communication. Good communication is based on understanding; misunderstandings occur because different people communicate differently. The way to overcome these differences is with more communication based on principles offered by the books. They thus take on the role usually granted to communication: mediating between two discrete entities – only here, it is not individuals, but individuals’ communication styles. Granted, the notion of the self is not stable and might have undergone changes over the decades. But even if this is the case, the question of communication remains a constant concern across periods and texts.

Essentials of good communication

Self-help books revolve around the intertwined themes of awareness, listening and practicing. The books hold that awareness is both responsible for, and the result of, good communication. On the one hand, they claim, individuals with good self-awareness have a greater chance of becoming better communicators since they can more easily feel where and how they need to improve. On the other hand, learning and practicing communication exercises increases one’s awareness. Awareness is thus a prerequisite for, an expression of, and the desired outcome of refined communication skills.

In the books, “awareness” may connote a cognitive, psychological or social process, alternately referring to gaining knowledge – for example, becoming aware of the fact that men and women talk differently – paying attention to one’s inner hidden motivations and to the way one communicates (e.g., one’s body language), and recognizing (both noticing and legitimizing) the other’s sensitivities and motivations. For example, Taylor and Lester (2009), claim that “it’s important to develop a greater awareness of other people, learn to observe others carefully, and be more sensitive toward other people’s emotions and attitudes” (p. 24). All three meanings are interconnected, since learning about the existence of unconscious motives and different communication styles raises awareness both of one’s own underlying motivations and needs and those of others, and helps convey attentiveness and care. The overarching condition of awareness hence connects “knowing that” and “knowing how;” self and other; inner feelings and outer expressions; emotion and reason.

If awareness is the fundamental state of mind for communication, listening is its fundamental mode. The books emphasize that, contrary to common belief, communication actually begins with the interlocutor, or, as one work puts it, “communication happens on the listener’s terms” (Erikson, 2019 [2014], p. 1). Accordingly, self-help books maintain that the key to communication is the “art and science” of listening. Their contention is that most people rarely listen to what others are saying, and only a few have training in listening. As a corrective, many of the books promote “active listening,” which, more than merely hearing, involves paying attention to the underlying feelings of both speaker and listener and projecting attentiveness (e.g., by nodding and uttering non-verbal sounds such as “hmm” or asking questions and paraphrasing). According to the books, “listening” is not limited to mere physical hearing, but involves other senses and mental attentiveness. As Alda (2018 [2017] writes,

Being truly connected to the other person happens when we see them in a way that’s both emotional and rational, especially if we include listening with our eyes: looking for clues in the face, in gestures—in all the nonverbal signs of a state of mind. It’s complete and total listening.

(p. 24)

The activeness of listening also refers to avoidance of listening – that is, filtering out distractions. The books explain that such things as the background noise from the TV, or the vibration from a pocket cellphone, pull our attention away from the person speaking to us. Culture, too, sets negative role models, as with the frequent indirectness and dishonesty of political statements or the bluntness of talk shows and reality TV. But, most of all, distractions arise from within. The books claim that we all hold internal dialogs that interrupt the conversations we hold with others. As You’re Not Listening states, “cultivating self-awareness is a matter of paying attention to your emotions while in conversation and recognizing when your fears and sensitivities – or perhaps your desires and dreams – hijack your ability to listen well” (Murphy, 2020, p. 123).

Indeed, the books insist that there is a strong interdependence between intrapersonal communication, which concerns one’s self-consciousness vis-à-vis one’s emotions and needs, and interpersonal communication, which deals with the expression and recognition both of one’s own and the other’s emotions and needs. Thus, for example, a book about effective conversations (Garner, 1997) explains that in order to use “active listening” to elicit conversation, one needs first to understand that “interpersonal communication begins intrapersonally” (p. 37). Another book on conversations (Stone, Patton, & Heen, 2010 [1999]) similarly draws attention to “the commentator in your head,” noting that “finding and paying attention to your own internal voice – what you’re thinking but not saying – is the crucial first step in overcoming the biggest barrier to inauthentic listening” (p. 168).

Book authors argue that realizing differences, raising awareness and learning to listen are an ongoing cognitive and behavioral process achieved through practice. Accordingly, various exercises are provided. In some cases, these are meant for two or more people – e.g., a married couple or a family – but more often they apply to individual readers. These exercises, which appear as part of the main text, in separate text boxes, as separate chapters or book sections, or in appendixes, consist of questionnaires and instructions for various drills. Readers are guided to evaluate their level of communication skills and typify their communication style; to practice more focused listening and to make use of specific communication skills, e.g., mirroring the interlocutors’ body language or adopting their communication style.

Such exercises, it is claimed, can be done by anyone, and anyone who does them conscientiously can expect to benefit from significantly improved communication. Thus, readers are repeatedly urged to follow the instructions despite the fact that exercises can be “seemingly mundane,” “unnatural,” “time-consuming and artificial,” or “awkward.” Some books insist on practice even if this causes stress: “Whatever a person’s reason for resisting this exercise,” writes Hendrix (1988), “my prescription is the same: ‘Keep doing the exercise exactly as described. Even if it causes you anxiety, keep it up. Do it harder and more aggressively than before. Eventually your anxiety will go away’” (p. 129).

Over time, the authors explain, new ways of communicating become natural. Many of the books refer to these new communication patterns as habits and devote sections and chapters – and in one case (Covey, 1989), the entire book – to this topic. These habits are meant to replace prior, inappropriate behavior patterns that were acquired during the formative years of childhood. Habits are the outcome of immense repetition over time; unlike skills, they refer not to the deliberate acquisition of competences performed in a professional setting, but to the absentminded behavioral patterns performed throughout day-to-day life. Put somewhat differently, they are experiences that have crystallized into parts of the self, and, at the same time, testify to the self’s potential for change. The process that the books promote consists of transforming unconscious habits into conscious skills, which ultimately become the natural behavior of a newly configured, awakened self.

How to communicate “communication”?

Self-help books on communication are guides of a particular sort. Written by experts for novices and containing theoretical knowledge and practical instructions, they are similar, from this perspective, to cookbooks that may inform about the chemistry, history and cultural significance of various dishes, teach how to cook them, and – in an accumulative manner – turn readers into chefs. Cookbooks, however, are solely about cooking, whereas communication books are themselves communication. Just by reading the book, one is already communicating, albeit on the receiving end (you are the omelet, so to speak). However, the communication that books are and the communication they are about are different – the former a mass-produced, written text, the latter a face-to-face oral talk. As the following will show, self-help authors use both these characteristics of the books to promote their messages.

On the most basic level, authors underscore communicativeness by relating to the writing of their book and to its being read. Covey (1989), for instance, expresses a seemingly obvious observation: “Right now you’re reading a book I’ve written. Reading and writing are both forms of communication. So are speaking and listening” (p. 237). Moreover, many books offer specific instructions as to how they should be read. Readers are counseled to read the text fully, carefully, in the right order and multiple times, with breaks to allow ideas to seep in and habits to be instilled. “Keep reading this book,” urges one (Erikson, 2019), “the whole book, not just the first three chapters (p. xv). “Read the book slowly,” recommends another (Faber & Mazlish, 2012 [1980], p. xv), while others suggest either to “read no more than one chapter per sitting, and begin using each skill immediately after you learn it” (Garner, 1997, p. xiv) or to “read all of the text before you attempt the written [exercises]” (Hendrix, 1988, p. 33).

Readers are guided not only concerning the pace and order of their reading, but also with regard to the state of mind in which reading should be done. Readers are urged to pause and think about their communication habits and to recall instances from their own lives that are similar to those narrated in the text. Tying the book’s content to readers’ personal experience helps bring the theoretical ideas closer to their everyday experience. More fundamentally, it constitutes the very act of reading as a form of practicing communication skills – contingent upon this being done with the proper attentiveness and self-awareness. As Faber and Mazlish (2012 [1980] state: “Just by reading this book you’ve asked a great deal of yourself. There have been new principles to absorb, new skills to put into practice, new patterns to learn, and old patterns to unlearn” (p. 194).

The books also emphasize the fact that they were written by their authors. Many such references appear in the preface explaining the author’s motivation for writing. Occasionally, however, such references interrupt the main text. For instance, Gray pauses his discussion on marital misunderstandings to report:

For example, my wife just came in and asked how I was doing on this chapter. I said: “I’m almost done. How was your day?” She said, “Oh, there is so much to do. We hardly have any time together.” The old me would have become defensive […] The new me, aware of our differences, understood she was looking for reassurance and understanding and not justifications and explanations.

(1992, p. 87)

This story encapsulates many of the attributes of self-help books: a chatty style, first-person narration and the use of personal stories. While the event being described was obviously not recorded at the exact moment of its occurrence, the use of present tense and direct quotes create the sense of its transpiring in front of the readers’ eyes. This story, and similar instances in which the books refer to themselves, are a form of meta-reference, defined by Wolf (2009) as: “all kinds of references to, or comments on, aspects of a medial artifact […] that issue from a logically higher ‘meta-level’ within a given artifact and elicits corresponding self-referential reflections in the recipient” (p. v). The effect of meta-reference in the books is, paradoxically, that of concealing books’ mediality: by talking about their books, authors in effect talk above them, directly to their readers.

Indeed, self-help books familiarize their ideas by using fictional and nonfictional personal stories depicting familiar situations such as a couple’s argument or a conversation with a boss or client. Anecdotal as these stories are, they are abundant even in books based on academic research (e.g., Tannen, 1990), and are sometimes presented as being superior to scientific validation. In the preface to the second edition of Crucial Conversations, for instance, the authors mention the growing body of research supporting their claims, but add that the most gratifying results “have not come through research numbers but through the thousands of stories told by courageous and skillful readers” (Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, & Switzler, 2002, p. xiii). Although thousands of stories can certainly constitute a substantial corpus of case studies for research, their value appears to lie in practicality and subjectivity, rather than abstraction or objectivity.

Stories are arguably the glue binding the books – and also readers. Reading a self-help book about communication is performing a solitary activity referring to a social activity in which one is not currently taking part and in which one seeks improvement. Countering this, authors aim to create a sense of conversation by directly addressing their readers, making use of rhetorical questions and, in some cases, inviting correspondence and then incorporating letters from readers in later editions. Most importantly, authors assure readers that they are not alone in their quest for better communication. “If you find yourself nodding your head while reading this book, saying, ‘yes, yes, this is me you’re talking about,’” writes Gray (1992), “then you are definitely not alone. And just as others have benefited from applying the insights in this book, you can as well” (p. 4). Similarly, Hendrix (1988) claims that, “like the millions of people who have read this book before you, you will find that reading the text and practicing the exercises will do this [‘create a zone of safety’] for you” (p. xxi). Personal stories thus express another linkage between communication and the self – only here, not as diversity but as universality.

While other readers may serve as a source of identification, the more direct connection is with the author – or, more specifically, the author as someone who has learned, and who is now able to impart to readers how better to communicate. It is striking that so many of the books begin with personal stories telling of the author’s unsuccessful marriage, child-rearing problems or a general sense of dissatisfaction and nonfulfillment. These personal stories, and others that appear throughout the books, share a pattern of setbacks and successes that characterizes the genre of self-help more generally (Dolby, 2005): a crisis leads to revelations about communication, which ensures recovery and the writing of the book. In this sense, the “self” that is being helped is that of the author, whose stories, like those of bildungsroman protagonists, are meant not only to educate but to inspire.

The authorial presence is emphasized in the books with a mixture of bravado and self-effacement, akin to what has been analyzed in studies on comparable subjects: self-help books on positive thinking (Woodstock, 2006) and the expertise of communication skills experts (Fialkoff & Pinchevski, 2021). On the one hand, the authors stress their mastery of communication skills, point to their academic and professional backgrounds and occupations, note their participation in workshops and lectures, and – as befits writers – their abundant reading. “It’s taken me many years to acquire this knowledge” writes, for example, Erikson (2019 [2014]. “I’ve read books, attended training, and been certified many times in different subjects. Furthermore, I’ve led thousands of courses on the subject” (p. 102). In similar fashion, another author (Lowndes, 2003) asserts, “I read practically every book written on communications skills, charisma, and chemistry between people” (p. xiii]).

On the other hand, authors use a conversational style employing first- and second person, and openly talk about their own mistakes and limitations. This fosters a sense of intimacy – both of physical presence and intellectual parity with the readers. As Woodstock (2006) notes, self-help authors are engaged in “surreptitiously building authority while purportedly relinquishing control” (pp. 321–322). “By creating selves that are alike,” she argues,

authors ask readers to mold their personal narratives into the shape of the author’s story. If the reader projects her own image upon that of the author, the author’s narrative power is masked, appearing as the reader’s own, and allowing the fiction that readers individually generate a unique narrative of self to continue.

(p. 324)

The duality of authors as down-to-earth individuals identifying with their readers while simultaneously differentiating themselves as experts underscores the essence of self-help books, which, in the course of offering authoritative advice, must at the same time maintain readers’ autonomy. Moreover, this duality is at the core of this particular expertise, which privileges the clarity and relatability inherent in being “communicative.” As Fialkoff and Pinchevski (2021) claim, this seemingly contradictory proclamation of asserting and immediately renouncing the status of expertise is central to the constitution of this expertise. Indeed, authors of self-help books exhibit the four components of expertise in communication as analyzed by Fialkoff and Pinchevski – professional knowledge, professional experience, personal traits and personal biography. Glass (2002), for example, links knowledge and awareness, career and autobiography: “From an early age I was primed for what would eventually become my life’s work […] My father prepared me to do well as a student, leading to me to two Ph.D.s, one in counseling psychology, the other in communication disorders” (p. 4).

To a large extent, the traits exhibited by the authors parallel – but on a higher level and to a greater degree – the knowledge, awareness and practicing that their readers are expected to obtain. Many authors acknowledge this difference, but frame it as a service they are able to provide. In their accounts, they describe how they spent years of treating patients, analyzing successful individuals, and gathering, compiling and simplifying knowledge – all for the benefit of their readers. One of the more blatantly worded claims is that of Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler (2002): “We’ve isolated and captured the skills of the dialogue-gifted through twenty-five years of nonstop ‘Wow!’ research” (p. 25).

“Wow,” and other expressions of amazement are abundant in the books. Such expressions are ostensibly meant to signal the innovativeness and truthfulness of an author’s ideas and to elicit similar reaction from readers. For example, Tannen (1990) describes an event that occurred to her during the time she was working on her book. “I realized, with something of a jolt,” she writes, “that I had just experienced the dynamic that I had been writing about” (p. 143). Similarly, Gray (1992) recounts: “By learning in very practical and specific terms about how men and women are different, I suddenly began to realize that my marriage did not need to be such a struggle. With this new awareness of our differences Bonnie and I were able to improve dramatically our communication and enjoy each other more” (p. 3). Authors’ revelations are an expression of their refined awareness, which differs from readers’ awareness not only in its intensity but also in its source; unlike that of readers, authors’ awareness emanates from within and bears the quality of creation, not just discovery.

However, despite their supreme qualities, authors inevitably meet limitations. Most obviously, they have difficulty in practicing the “listening” they preach. According to Woodstock (2006), this makes the reading of a self-help book

a one-way communication in practice, despite the textual effort to construct a dialogic sense of reality … . [A]uthors attempt to overcome these weaknesses by generating a sense of intimacy and compelling readers to adopt their stories, suggesting, by way of anecdote, that they are “listening” to their readers.

(p. 339)

Authors’ difficulty in listening reflects not only the limitation of the medium but their substantively different status and level of knowledge. From this position as experts writing a self-help book, authors cannot help but violate their own recommendations about communication when they advise readers to refrain from advice-giving; when they criticize criticizing; when they offer judgment about being judgmental; and when they claim that people wrongly presume to know what others think and feel. Occasionally, these contradictions become strikingly apparent within the space of a few lines. For example, one author (Rosenberg, 2005 [2002]) asserts: “Judgments, criticisms, diagnoses, and interpretations of others are all alienated expressions of our needs” (p. 52). In You’re Not Listening, one paragraph concludes with the edict: “One can only speak for one’s self” after beginning with the following generalization: “Most people think other people are influenced by stereotypes but are oblivious to how often they, themselves, make knee-jerk assumptions” (Murphy, 2020, p. 57).

Directed at others, statements such as “one can only speak for one’s self” are apprehensible only if the authors are exempt from their own imperative. This, in turn, is contingent upon their holding an objective, know-it-all perspective of supreme expertise. However, the very content of the saying negates the existence of such experts. Hence, the conundrum: is such a statement merely the author’s personal opinion? If so, why isn’t it phrased in the “I” formula that self-help books so assiduously promote (“I can only speak for myself”)? Moreover, why would it appear in a book meant for a multitude of readers? Apparently, the only way to reconcile the matter is by regarding such dicta as advice from an expert – who is also, at the same time, expressing a private opinion. Self-help books thus hold a “superposition” simultaneously positioned in the realms of expertise and laity, writing about – but also talking to. They are at once communication and metacommunication.

Discussion: Textualization, decontextualization and recontextualization

Self-help books have been the target of widespread criticism both in mainstream media and in academic works. Often, the focus is on the disparity between the broad social acceptance of the books and their perceived ineffectiveness, pretentiousness, lack of originality and dearth of substantial content. Cherry (2008), for example, takes aim at the “ontological paradox” of the books: ”[O]n the one hand, reading a self-help book is characterized as the single requirement for its readers to fulfil their quest for self-help; while, on the other, that invocation of reading is in itself insufficient for self-help” (p. 377).

As the analysis shows, self-help books on communication embody many other paradoxes: they aim to fix communication with more communication; they obscure mediality by underscoring it; they promote the idea that communication varies from self to self yet address readers uniformly. Moreover, they offer advice that is touted as both groundbreaking and commonsensical, alongside exercises that are revolutionary yet orthodox; they depict authors as larger-than-life but also down-to-earth; and, altogether, they practice the exact opposite of what they preach. But precisely because of these paradoxes, and because the books address a lay audience and are meant to be practical, they offer a rare opportunity to examine the complex relationship between communication and metacommunication.

Perhaps the most basic paradox about self-help books-one that arises even before reading a single page – is that they are written texts promoting oral talk. If authors place so much emphasis on orality, why do they turn to the written medium of a book as the means to transmit their ideas and techniques? The key to understanding this paradox, as many others, is the role of this medium in expressing and enabling metacommunication.

What has been termed the “ontological paradox” of self-help books revolves around the issue of agency: how books can purportedly offer external support for solving problems, while at the same time insisting that their readers can help themselves. One possible answer is that the books do not aim to solve readers’ problems, but rather teach them how to do it themselves. Hence, the books’ referring to themselves as “guides” that teach skills (none of the texts that were examined referred to itself as a “self-help” book). Generally, teaching a skill can be done by means of explanation or demonstration, e.g., teaching cooking by giving instructions in a cookbook or by leading a cooking workshop, but not by mere exposure to the result of its performance, e.g., serving a dish.

Admittedly, the distinction between demonstration and performance is not always definitive (one can improve cooking skills by discerning the subtle tastes of a dish). However, in the case of communication skills, this distinction is eliminated, due to communication’s recursivity – the quality that any reference to communication is itself a form of communication (Krippendorff, 1994). While this recursivity of communication is utilized by experts to performatively establish their mastery of skills in face-to-face encounters (Fialkoff & Pinchevski, 2021), it hinders their ability to teach these skills in that particular context.

In an effort to explain and demonstrate communication skills without actually performing them – to offer practicality without practicing—authors abandon orality and turn to an entirely different medium: the written text. The written text permits observation of “communication skills” from the sidelines. As opposed to the dynamic and ephemeral nature of oral communication, a written text is more permanently fixed. Furthermore, it transcends the equation of (the act of) writing to talking, and reading to listening. The turn to textuality allows authors to separate themselves from their ideas, thereby granting the latter a status of objectivity and universality, which, in turn, legitimates authors’ use of generalization, criticism and judgment. Crucially, what is demonstrated by textuality is not the ability to communicate, but to metacommunicate. This is the very skill that authors seek to teach their readers: not what to say or even how to say, but how to create the conditions for saying.

Textuality also promotes readers’ agency – their ability to view the simulation of skill without being subjected to its performance. Free of author’s charisma and of norms of politeness, they can evaluate rationally, at their own time and pace, what they read. Authors may try to regulate reading, but ultimately it is up to readers to decide whether to delve, skim or skip – or, at any time, simply shut the book. Inasmuch as reading is listening, it is active listening. Moreover, reading is also a sort of “talk” since it involves, at the very least, the mental voicing of the written words in the readers’ mind. Readers are thus involved in various conversations: they witness the dialogs between the people depicted in texts, they recollect their own past encounters and rehearse for those to come, and they engage in talk with the authors. By reading out loud, moving their lips or merely “recording” the words in their heads, readers conflate themselves with the first-person narrators of the texts.

Reading resembles practicing in the sense that it can be – and is encouraged to be – done repetitiously. As with writers’ performance, readers’ “practicing” is simulated, and here, too, the textuality serves to empower them. In the safe environment provided by the books, readers can envision performing their skills without the risks of face-to-face encounters, while also sharpening their “awareness.” And with this awareness, even in the actual practicing – when readers apply the exercises in real-life situations – the books, in a sense, are still present.

In sum, textuality enables decontextualization of authors’ ideas about “communication” and their recontextualization by readers. This, in turn, allows for the packaging of generic solutions to problems that are conceived as deeply personal. Textuality serves as a form of communication about communication and also facilitates communication. Its difference from orality enables it, both in terms of authors’ performance and of readers’ practicing, to communicate about communication without actually “communicating.” It is precisely the distinction and distance from oral talk embodied in textuality that allow for an observation of communication skills at a remove. In this sense, textuality’s indirectness and absence of emotionality are similar to the very attributes of the “flawed” communication authors seek to improve. To the extent that authors succeed in harnessing even the limited medium of textuality to build rapport, they present the possibility of improvement of what they consider to be “communication.” Self-help books are thus a communication about (the conditions for improved) “communication” – a metacommunication of metacommunication.

Self-help books on communication skills might be so successful not despite the contradictions with which they are riddled, but arguably because of them. The contradictions expressed in these books mirror those experienced by their readers, detached as they are in today’s modern societies from traditional ties such as family, community and religion, and encouraged to define themselves within their own self-created worlds. The mental process of decontextualization-recontextualization experienced by readers of self-help books on “communication” serves as a model of the approach they are expected to adopt in such an unforgiving world. In this sense, reading self-help books on communication skills is indeed an expression of (imagined) agency: a performance of self-help. Under such circumstances, despite the irreconcilable paradoxes it harbors, “communication” – which is said to emanate from the self but inevitably relates to others – will probably continue to offer itself as the ultimate solution for the individuals’ troubled relationships with their social world and their own selves.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Hadar Levy-Landsberg for crucial help.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ The corpus comprises the following books: If I understood you, would I have this look on my face? My adventures in the art and science of relating and communicating (Alda, 2018 [2017]); Improve your communication skills (Barker, 2010 [2006]); Communicate with confidence: How to say it right the first time and every time (Booher, 2012); The 7 habits of highly effective people (Covey, 1989); Surrounded by idiots: The four types of human behavior and how to effectively communicate with each in business (and in life) (Erikson, 2014); How to talk so kids will listen & listen so kids will talk (Faber & Mazlish, 1980); Conversationally speaking: Tested new ways to increase your personal and social effectiveness (Garner, 1997); I know what you’re thinking: Using the four codes of reading people to improve your life (Glass, 2002); Men are from Mars, women are from Venus: A practical guide for improving communication and getting what you want in your relationships (Gray, 1992); Getting the love you want: A guide for couples (Hendrix, 1998); How to talk to anyone: 92 little tricks for big success in relationships (Lowndes, 2003); You’re not listening: What you’re missing and why it matters (Murphy, 2020); Crucial conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high (Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, & Switzler, 2002); Nonviolent communication: A language of life (Rosenberg, 2002); Difficult conversations: How to discuss what matters most (Stone et al.,1999); You just don’t understand: Women and men in conversation (Tannen, 1990); Communication: Your key to success (Taylor & Lester, 2009); The art of SpeedReading people (Tieger & Barron-Tieger, 1998).