''Your Erroneous Zones'' is the first

self-help book A self-help book is one that is written with the intention to instruct its readers on solving personal problems. The books take their name from ''Self-Help'', an 1859 best-seller by Samuel Smiles, but are also known and classified under "self-im ...

written by

Wayne Dyer Wayne Walter Dyer (May 10, 1940 – August 29, 2015) was an American self-help author and a motivational speaker. Dyer completed a Ed.D. in guidance and counseling at Wayne State University in 1970. Early in his career, he worked as a high sch ...

and first issued by Funk & Wagnalls publishers in April 1976. It is one of the top-selling books of all time, with an estimated 35 million copies sold. The book spent 64 weeks on ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' bestseller list through November 13, 1977, including a spot at number one on the week of May 8, 1977.

Criticism

Psychotherapist Albert Ellis writes that Dyer's book ''Your Erroneous Zones'' is probably "the worst example" of plagiarism of Ellis'

Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy Rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), previously called rational therapy and rational emotive therapy, is an active-directive, philosophically and empirically based psychotherapy, the aim of which is to resolve emotional and behavioral p ...

(REBT). In a 1985 letter to Dyer, Ellis claims that Dyer had participated in a workshop Ellis gave on REBT before Dyer published his book, in which Dyer appeared to understand REBT very well. Wayne Dyer probably had a fundamental understanding before continuing to explore this idea. Ellis adds that "300 or more people have voluntarily told me... that

he book He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

was clearly derived from REBT." Dyer never apologized or expressed any sense of wrongdoing. Ellis admonishes Dyer for unethically and unprofessionally not giving Ellis credit as the book's primary source, but expressed overall gratitude for Dyer's work, writing: "''Your Erroneous Zones'' is a good book, ... it has helped a great number of people, and ... it outlines the main principles of REBT quite well,... with great simplicity and clarity." Note: Dyer's book ''Your Erroneous Zones'' mentions Albert Ellis on page 148.

References

Self-help books 1976 non-fiction books {{self-book-stub