I can't help myself, thinking about her.

[navi tasan]

1) I can't help myself, thinking about her.
(Meaning: I can't keep from thinking about her.)

Is #1 grammatical and meaningful?

 

[Rover_KE]

No. Delete ‘myself’ and the comma.

 

[emsr2d2]

We usually use "I can't help myself" as a standalone sentence or at least a clause followed by a dash. It would be preceded by or followed by the thing you can't stop doing.

I keep thinking about her. I just can't help myself.
I just can't help myself - I keep thinking about her.

 

[Annabel Lee]

1) I can't help myself, thinking about her.

No. Delete ‘myself’ and the comma.

Another option is to use "from" instead of the comma:

I can't help myself from thinking about her.​

 

[Rover_KE]

Another option is to use "from" instead of the comma:

I can't help myself from thinking about her.​

I don't hear that in British English.

 

[Annabel Lee]

I don't hear that in British English.

I just found a linguistic study (here) that discusses the use of the "from"-variant in AmE and BrE. I'm having difficulty interpreting the data, but it may be that it's used less in BrE than it is in AmE. I certainly use the construction you recommended more than the "from"-variant. At the same time, I'm comfortable with that variant.

 

[Skrej]

I don't hear that in British English.

I've never heard its ilk in AmE either.

I'd expect to hear "I can't stop myself...."

 

[Annabel Lee]

I've never heard its ilk in AmE either.

"I can't seem to help myself from doing that which I don't want to do" (Ken D. Walston Jr., Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?).

"But I couldn't help myself from taking another peek when the waiter returned with my tea" (Amy Plum, Die for Me).

"That question is complicated, but I believe one good way to look at it is to consider how one would go about proving that someone 'can't help himself' from committing criminal actions" (Henry T. Greely, Law and Neuroscience).

"The grating scrape of her chair legs against the wooden floor was wholly in tune with her mood, and she couldn't help herself from calling him out as she got to her feet" (Nell Stark, The Princess Affair).

"The big, bad Red Army was running away, and they just couldn't help themselves from doing a small jig inside the fort" (George Crile, Charlie Wilson's War).