Self Help is listed on wikipedia as being "a is a self-guided improvement —economically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a substantial psychological basis. There are many different self-help movements and each has its own unique focus, techniques, associated beliefs, proponents and in some cases leaders."

History

Samuel Smiles (1812–1904) published the first self-consciously personal-development "self-help" book — entitled Self-Help — in 1859. Its opening sentence: "Heaven helps those who help themselves", provides a variation of "God helps them that help themselves", the oft-quoted maxim that also appeared previously in Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac (1733–1758).