This previous Sunday, Keila Shaheen woke as much as discover that, as soon as once more, she was the best-selling writer throughout all of Amazon. To get there, she’d outsold each different ebook on the platform—together with Walter Isaacson’s buzzy biography of Elon Musk and the Fox Information host Mark Levin’s screed The Democrat Occasion Hates America. She’d even beat out Oprah.
At simply 24, she is a bona fide publishing juggernaut. And but few exterior of TikTok have even bothered to note. That’s in all probability partly as a result of her best-selling ebook isn’t truly a ebook in any respect within the conventional sense. It’s a self-published mental-health information known as The Shadow Work Journal, and its success has been fueled by a gentle drumbeat of movies posted on TikTok. Impressed by the writings of the psychoanalyst Carl Jung, it affords readers prompts and actions for interrogating the unconscious, repressed a part of themselves. By attending to know our “shadow,” the Jungian principle goes, we are able to higher perceive ourselves and our habits.
One train invitations readers to stare at themselves in a mirror for 5 to 10 minutes and speak to their reflection, writing down their observations afterward. One other has them make a gratitude checklist. A web page on “wound mapping” asks the reader to circle statements equivalent to “hates being alone” or “struggles to let issues go” with a purpose to determine their “inner-child wound.” In one video posted on TikTok, which has greater than 50 million views, a reader has circled nearly the entire statements: “Realizing I’ve extra points than I believed,” the caption reads. I bought my copy throughout a protracted journey and did one of many actions on the aircraft; it turned out that my shadow was uninterested in flying and wished to be house.
Shaheen isn’t a training therapist, and her conventional mental-health credentials are restricted: She graduated from Texas A&M College in 2020 with bachelor’s levels in psychology and advertising, and took a coaching course in cognitive-behavioral remedy (CBT) from Achology’s Academy of Fashionable Utilized Psychology, an internet college. (Licensed therapists usually have a grasp’s diploma in counseling, hundreds of hours of supervised expertise offering remedy, and a passing grade on any variety of licensure exams.) As a substitute, Shaheen’s background is in advertising and model technique. She’s completed this work for varied firms, together with TikTok itself, the place she was a artistic strategist. Her knack for storytelling on social media is obvious within the ebook’s viral success: TikTok customers have gone rabid over her journal. Some have raved that the workbook is “cheaper than remedy” and posted dreamy movies of themselves filling it out on a sunny day. Others accused it of being demonic and anti-religious. Nonetheless extra query its legitimacy as a therapeutic instrument.
Shaheen defends the ebook by contending that it may possibly assist individuals. “I firmly imagine everybody deserves entry to mental-health sources and the possibility to embark on a therapeutic journey,” she advised me over electronic mail, arguing that instruments just like the journal “can usually encourage people to hunt remedy,” a route she recommends “if it’s accessible.”
Shadow Work Journal movies have handed 1 billion views in complete on the platform, and plenty of of those posts perform as direct promoting due to TikTok Store, the platform’s new e-commerce model. The movies function hyperlinks to purchase the journal within the app. TikTok Store additionally affords affiliate options that enable creators who make movies about merchandise to get a fee for every sale. Lots of the journal movies use this function. One 20-year-old part-time scholar I emailed advised me she’d made about $1,000 off of her video concerning the ebook. She had requested a free copy of it by a creator program, and in alternate, TikTok prompted her to put up about it.
The rise of the Shadow Work Journal is one other reminder of TikTok’s energy—to generate dialog, to promote a ton of books, to maintain individuals in an algorithmic loop indefinitely. Although it was first printed within the fall of 2021, the journal reached hit standing this 12 months, after being listed in TikTok Store. It has offered 290,000 copies on TikTok alone since April—45 p.c of its total gross sales, Shaheen says, which means greater than half one million offered in complete. As some extent of reference, Isaacson’s Elon Musk offered 92,560 copies the old school method in its first week. Shaheen despatched me screenshots of 4 separate instances she’d reached the highest slot on Amazon since mid-August, together with this previous Sunday.
Nevertheless a lot they assist unfold the phrase, algorithms alone can not clarify the journal’s reputation. Individuals’ struggles with psychological well being are effectively documented, significantly amongst younger adults, who are likely to spend extra time on TikTok than older individuals. Remedy is dear, generally stigmatized, and at instances inaccessible—many professionals say they can’t meet affected person demand. Individuals are in search of assist.
That they’re discovering it in an inexpensive, DIY resolution isn’t a surprise; self-help books have at all times been common in America. That they’re doing that is additionally not essentially dangerous. “The Shadow Work Journal may give helpful alternatives for reflection and progress,” Corey Basch, a public-health professor at William Paterson College, advised me. However she additionally located the ebook in a broader context: an period of free, generally questionable medical recommendation on social media. Basch co-authored a 2022 examine that examined posts printed underneath the #mentalhealth hashtag on TikTok. Although some respectable therapists have discovered success on the platform, Basch characterised the fabric she’s come throughout as “consumer-driven and rife with points associated to credibility.” She cautioned that working by powerful matters may lead a reader to “rekindle trauma,” and that consultants usually advise that such work be completed as a part of remedy with a supervising skilled. The journal does include a disclaimer: “Whereas anybody can do shadow work, a licensed psychological well being skilled is an efficient possibility, particularly for people who’ve skilled extreme trauma or abuse.”
Shadow work, it ought to be famous, is a distinct segment follow. Although it has its proponents, psychoanalysis has taken a again seat to extra empirical strategies. Now Google searches for shadow work are skyrocketing alongside gross sales of the journal. Connie Zweig, a retired psychotherapist and herself the writer of books on shadow work, advised me that she was “very stunned” to listen to how a lot the subject had blown up. “It’s thrilling as a result of it may possibly open doorways for individuals,” Zweig advised me, “but it surely’s additionally harmful if individuals assume that is all they want.” She thought the ebook had “oversimplified” the Jungian concept of the unconscious, a minimum of primarily based on what she’s seen of it in TikTok movies.
Joshua Terhune, a therapist in Indiana with 300,000 followers on TikTok, additionally had some critiques. He was curious sufficient to request a evaluate copy of the journal by TikTok Store and ended up ranking it two and a half stars out of 5. Once I requested him if Sheehan’s CBT certificates would qualify an individual to put in writing a shadow-work journal, he laughed and stated, “No, not even shut.” In response to the criticism that she’s underqualified, Shaheen advised me that she questioned whether or not critics had appeared up her writer bio: “In the event that they’re not snug buying any work from an precise licensed therapist, that’s okay. They’ll take a look at different choices.”
She isn’t a licensed medical skilled, CBT certificates or not. However Shaheen is a transparent author and an exceptionally shrewd observer of on-line developments. She’s struck a nerve. In a single TikTok from August with 10 million views, the video’s creator extols the Shadow Work Journal for altering her life. “I wasn’t therapeutic. My relationships weren’t profitable. And it wasn’t till my shadow journal that I noticed I had plenty of unresolved traumas,” she says. “This helped me name all my POWER again to me.” And sure, she’s eligible for fee.
