That's men for you:There was a man on the radio the other week scoffing at self-help books.
Since I had just finished writing a guide to men's emotional wellbeing, I was a bit put out by this - until he declared he had never actually read a self-help book.
I comforted myself with the thought that this put him in the same ballpark as celebrity Jordan who once superbly boasted that she had never read a book in her life, including her own autobiography.
I was more encouraged by reports of a research exercise in the US which found that teenagers given a self-help book to read felt the benefits for longer than those given certain forms of therapy.
Of 225 teenagers in the study, some were encouraged to express their feelings in a safe environment - the beneficial effects of this treatment lasted for a month.
Others were given cognitive behavioural therapy, a more structured approach in which participants are asked to look at and change their patterns of thinking. Here, the effects were still apparent after two months. But those given a self-help book to read were still showing beneficial effects six months later.
It should be said that the participants received relatively few sessions of therapy whereas they could, of course, refer to the book again and again.
When I was a teenager, the only self-help books on the shelves were Catholic Truth Society pamphlets such as What Every Boy Should Know and Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People and How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. Carnegie's books, far more fun than Catholic Truth Society pamphlets, had a positive influence on my life and I still sometimes recommend them to counselling clients.
My own odyssey into self-help authorship began with a request from Veritas to write a book for men and culminates this evening with the launch of Like a Man - a guide to men's emotional wellbeing.
It's a daunting task, especially when you survey the shelves in Easons and see titles ranging from Change Your Life in a Week to Change Your Life in 10 Minutes. Ten minutes! I didn't buy that one I can tell you - if it does what it says on the tin, you'd need to have your affairs in order before settling down to chapter one.
A major challenge in writing a book like this, I found, is getting the tone of voice right. As I pared down my "just do what I say and you'll be grand" style, chapter after chapter went to the recycle bin. And when my editor, Ruth Garvey, tactfully remarked that "I have read books that tend to slip into a slightly condescending tone", further chapters were trashed.
The last thing that's needed in a book for men is a condescending tone, not least because men are fed up with being lectured as though they were hapless, hopeless and irresponsible. Traditionally, men have been expected to get on with things without complaining, to go to war without complaining, to do hard and health-damaging work without complaining - and then we are ticked off and lectured for not taking care of ourselves.
Similarly, there seems to be some sort of assumption that men take relatively little interest in relationships, but my experience in this column and as a counsellor has convinced me that this is not so.
Women might be more articulate about relationships but men are just as interested even though we talk about it less. So the book has a good deal to say about conflict in relationships, enhancing relationships and relationship breakdown as well as topics such as anxiety, depression and workplace bullying.
Self-help books, if they are to be honest, have to be based on the author's own faults and mistakes and what he did, should have done or could have done about them. And I am blessed with having had, and I still have, many faults from which to learn. If only I had read What Every Boy Should Know before it was too late . . .
Padraig O'Morain's book Like A Man- a guide to men's emotional wellbeing is published by Veritas. His blog is at www.justlikeaman.blogspot.com