Self-Help Ideology

In late modernity, the Western world is understood, organized, and regulated according to what has been called the psy complex. Self-help ideology, in particular, has become an increasingly inescapable, enduring, and significant part of popular culture over the past 50 years. As a result, the self-help genre has achieved a spectacular prominence in North American society. Persuaded to understand ourselves in terms of inner fulfillment, good relationships, self-actualization, and so on, we have come to expect the experts or self-help gurus to assist and direct us in our quests for self-transformation. Consequently, psychocentrism, or the view that all problems reside in the individual mind and/or body dominates and characterizes the therapeutic culture of Western society. The self-help genre thus forms an important aspect of the ...