Steve Salerno is an American nonfiction author, essayist and educator best known for his 2005 critique of the self-help movement, SHAM: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless. The book received a mostly enthusiastic critical reception, though some reviewers accused Salerno of overreach in his analysis of self-help's broader effects in society. In the book, Salerno argues that far from being merely an innocuous fad, self-help in recent decades has done significant damage to the American social fabric. Salerno ties that damage principally to self-esteem based education and the fallout from the two polar schools of self-help thoughts, Victimization and Empowerment. He is highly critical of Alcoholics Anonymous and derivative 12-step programs. He has also described the self-help move