Tony,
If you are disciplined enuff, you can teach yourself w/ that little blue book, The Silva Mind Control Method (which is the only direct book by Jose). I really appreciate this book. Then the book: You the Healer is also very clear and direct. It follows the tapes of the course.
The other books Alex mentions, i'm not familiar w/.
The good thing about the course is the guided visualizations. I also like listening to Jose speak on the last tape. He says some insightful things in response to questions. Took me awhile, though, to understand his accent. I felt more connected to him and his method via the tapes.
You definitely don't need to attend the workshop. I wasted my $$ on that. Ckerins told me i didn't need it & he was right. I say this b/c they cram it all in in 2 days. It's like non-stop & it was just too much for the time allowance.
Silva has us go to level, which is alpha, which is just deep relaxation. I used Deep Relaxation and 10 min. super charger to learn relaxation prior to holosync. So Silva says that going to level 3 times a day is the way to go. If you do it once a day that's good. If you do it twice a day that'
s very good. If you do it thrice a day that's excellent. 5 min=good. 10 min=v.good. 15 min.=excellent.
So, definitely the techniques are in books...fully and w/ nothing left out. Pretty much just like the PhRing book and course. Same thing. Good luck 
