Yes, self-help is an industry, an unregulated one. Anyone with a quick tongue and a gimmick and get rich in ths field.  We all believe a better life is possible. It usually requires effort and dedication. What makes the self-help pitch so attractive is: you can acheive success WITHOUT all that effort!

Self-help users are addicts - going from one self-guru to another when the first fails to deliver. Many self-help attend one lecture after another, but don't even bother to read the book they have purchased, and go on to the next huckster who promises them a better life. They often spend a fortune entering one program after another

Usually, they just waste their time and money but, sometimes, they die
Three people died after  entering a sweat lodge during a self-help retreat outside Sedona, Arizona in 2009. James Arthur Ray, then a prominent figure in the self-help industry, was overseeing the retreat.

Courtroom testimony alleged that instead of answering some participants' pleas for help, Ray pushed them further, encouraging them to tough out the sweltering conditions as part of a rebirthing process that would transform their lives.

Ray was convicted of negligent homicide and sentenced to six years in prison -- two for each victim. A judge allowed the sentence to be served concurrently, meaning Ray would serve two years. He ended up serving 20 months

Now out of prison and beginning a return to public life, Ray's attempt to rebuild his self help career is featured in a documentary "Enlighten Us," which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.

"On October 8th, 2009 I was involved in a terrible accident and I lost three friends," Ray says in the film. "People I really cared about," he adds tearfully.

Virginia Brown, mother of one of the victims, remains skeptical.

"His three good friends that he left in the dirt? Unconscious and did nothing to help them?" she counters. She is among the families of the three dead and 19 hospitalized who are angered.

"Really, returning to self help? Why don't you sell cars?" Ms. Brown asks of Ray. "I don't hold out that I want his life to be ruined. He should have a second chance for a good life, but not in this venue."

Ray said that returning to self-help is "exactly where I should be, and absolutely must be." He said to quit now "would be disrespectful to the memory" of those who died."They're heroes, not victims," Ray said.

"Like all of us they were there for a specific reason — something they believed in. So if their memories are going to live beyond the tragedy, to continue to have meaning, I really believe I have a responsibility to tell that over and over."

Ms.Brown considers Ray to be a dangerous force in the unregulated, $11 billion self-help industry.

Self-help, positive thinking, actualization, motivation, empowerment: the self-help industry  whirs on like a perpetual-motion dynamo, powered by the consumers’ insatiable need to have it all and to feel good about themselves, and by the promise that they CAN indeed have it all, if only they continue to swallow swill provided by the hucksters.

Self-help has been around a long time, and its recipients are growing ever needier while its providers are becoming more and more energetic. Classics of the genre have included Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People (published in 1936, it has sold 15 million copies); Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking (published in 1952, it preaches  “reprogramming” one’s thoughts can lead to success); and countless others. TV's famous Dr. Phil makes some $20 million a year from his books, television show, newsletter, and such memorabilia as baseball hats and t-shirts; and Tony Robbins’s Unlimited Power   makes Dr. Phil look like a piker, bringing in $80 million annually. In 2008 the self-help business made the cash registers ring to the tune of some $12 billion.