Tired? Depressed? Anxious? Angry? Anorexic or bulimic? The next time you see your GP, don’t be surprised if the only thing he or she prescribes is a reading list. That’s right: instead of pills and potions doctors are being encouraged to give patients self-help books.

This is the idea behind a scheme recently launched in Devon called the Devon Book Prescription. It works like this: you go to your doctor for a diagnosis, he writes you a recommended reading list and, instead of the chemist, you head for the library. Yes, Mrs Jones, just take these three books — once a month — and you’ll be right as rain.

It’s an idea that has come at the right time, for it seems the British are at last happy to embrace the self-help book.

Last week the online bookseller Amazon announced that six of its top 20 bestsellers were self-help books. Where once the overweight went to see their doctor, now they are turning to the likes of hypnotist Paul McKenna whose I Can Make You Thin is at No 4 in the Amazon chart.

Paul Ferrand, a lecturer in health psychology at Plymouth University, is the man behind the scheme. According to Ferrand, nine out 10 people with “mild to moderate” mental health problems — such as depression, eating disorders and anxiety — are not being treated by the National Health Service: “They tend to get put on waiting lists and by the time they can be treated their problems are often worse.”

Ferrand doesn’t doubt the value of self-help books, both for doctors and patients: “It cuts down on waiting lists and frees up a doctor’s time. It’s also a much cheaper option and can be safer than medication — books don’t have side effects.” But can a self-help book really be as effective as a therapist or Prozac? Dr Jim White, a spokesman for the British Psychological Society, thinks they should be prescribed with caution: “A self-help book can be really helpful, but it does depend who has written it.”

How will the average GP know which book to recommend? Doctors struggle to keep up with the latest findings in medical journals; heaven knows how they will deal with a constant flow of self-help titles such as Chicken Soup for the Bereaving Lesbian Anorexic.

Although Amazon has about 28,000 titles relating to self-help, there are only about 35 books on the National Institute for Clinical Excellence list for doctors to recommend to patients.

Among mental health professionals the leading title for fighting depression is Overcoming Depression by Paul Gilbert. His approach is based on “cognitive behavioural techniques” which treat emotional and psychological disorders by changing negative patterns of thought.

“When an event happens to us,” writes Gilbert, “we must decide what the event means before we can respond to it emotionally. Change the meaning and the emotions change.”

You could say that the technique is a case of mind over what’s-the-matter. Gilbert provides structured common sense, a series of mental exercises to get in shape to challenge the negative thoughts that lead to depression. For instance: “Write down your negative thoughts about a particular situation. Now look at them carefully.

“As you think about challenging and disputing these ideas, try to take a rational/compassionate approach. If you have negative thoughts, try thinking about what you might say to a friend in a similar situation. You might also consider how you would feel if you were not depressed.”

The problem is that when you are really depressed the last thing you feel like doing is reading a book. Depressives I’ve known can just about manage to look at the ceiling.And self-help books such as Gilbert’s require a degree of commitment and time that even a person free from the lethargy of depression would find hard to maintain.