I'm OK --You're Not So Hot

by Dolph Sharp

A fascinating and thought provoking book!

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

Reviews

[Mark Lattman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did you hate the pretentious navel gazing of mid 70’s self help books, or movements like EST or Lifespring? Did you find it just an excuse for people to deal with their existential angst by coming up with a way to justify their selfish behavior, therefore absolving themselves of the guilt over leading a self-centered life? Did their concepts and idioms strike you as just reducing their followers lives to shallow at best, and often completely meaningless, homilies? If so, boy do I have a parody for you. Short, funny and right to the point, this “book” (100 pages of big font with lots of pics) zeros in on the one dimensional form over substance nature of the phrases and ideas presented in courses like those, and books like “I’m OK, You’re OK” that blew up (but not in the authors preferred way) in the post 60’s “Me Decade” era, especially in the big city “progressive” coastal cultures of California and New York. Egotism disguised as altruism (“I’m saving the planet by saving my white and upper middle class self") and the irony of looking for an external cure for an internal void are heavily lampooned here, as is the simplicity of the concepts and how that leads to phraseology meant to hide the repetition and lack of depth in those concepts. Even the art is satire, with the minimalist drawings mirroring what one might find in a Ziggy panel, if Ziggy was even shallower and allowed partial nudity. Fun for me, less so for New Age Gurus and their followers. 87/100

[Henry Watts · Rating 2 out of 5]

Aaron Scott Lepley sent me this book. Fuck him.

book okish, hippy lame.

[Jeffrey Philips · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is very funny. It takes a poke at "I'm OK, You're OK." Only, this book has insights that we should learn.

[Enrique Ibarra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious book. Honestly, the best self-help book I've read.