The self-help gurus who make modern life simple, at a price

It would appear in this modern world that the more successful you are the more you are likely to seek out someone to tell you how to run your life.

Over the past few days there has been much comment about why a high achiever such as Cherie Blair might find her lifestyle guru Carole Caplin "indispensable". But the Prime Minister's wife is far from alone. The market has exploded over the past five years.

One only has to open a newspaper to see the plethora of fitness gurus, fashion gurus, relationship gurus, health gurus, and style gurus. One can even call on the services of a clutter consultant – someone who rids your home of its assembled junk, no doubt while another adviser is doing the same for your head.

Psychology expert Guy Claxton, a professor at Bristol University, puts it down to a collapse of old certainties and supportive communities. "With gurus, we're saying, 'Here's me with my confused world. And there's that person, who seems so clear and calm. I might get some of that if I hang out with them," he said.

Fiona Harrold – author of The 10-Minute Life Coach and a personal coach to a select clientele – even gets calls from conglomerates who want "happier, more fulfilled" executives.

Ms Harrold first took up self-esteem coaching 17 years ago. But it is in the last five years, she estimates, that the industry has burgeoned. "There is a certain urgency about life. We have got to get on with it. We want it all and we want it now."

Ms Harrold estimates that 50 per cent of her charges are men. "Men are used to sports coaches. They don't think it is sad. It is for achievers."