Can't sleep? Can't get a job? Can't get a boyfriend? Don't worry. There's a book out there for you. Polly Vernon investigates the astonishing growth of the 'Mind Body Spirit' genre and asks whether 'self help' is really any help at all.

It starts with an attempted suicide on the road to Aberdeen and reaches its grand climax on the island of Gomera... Barefoot Doctor's latest book is less a self-help tome than a journey of self-discovery. Here, he reveals how he came to write Twisted Fables for Twisted Minds and why it will either 'heal you or make you go insane'.

Could a single trip on a piece of African rootbark help a junkie kick the habit? That was the claim in the 1960s, and now iboga is back in the spotlight. But is it a miracle cure? Daniel Pinchbeck decided to give it a go. And life, he says, will never be the same again...

When M Scott Peck wrote The Road Less Travelled 25 years ago, he brought the self-help book into our lives and taught us that all our problems were solvable. The book has been a bestseller ever since - but how has Peck's own life matched up? Edward Marriott finds him on a winding road.

Dee O'Connell finds out how New York's biggest cad met his match - and his mate