“The success is to be yourself”: therapy culture, self-esteem and emotions in the self-help literature

Authors

  • Mayka Castellano Pós-doutoranda no Programa de Pós-Graduação em Comunicação e Cultura da Escola de Comunicação da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (ECO/UFRJ).

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4013/fem.2015.173.10

Abstract

In this paper, I analyze what is conventionally called as “therapy culture”, defined by authors like Frank Furedi and Nikolas Rose as a dissemination of an imaginary that puts the emotion and the subjectivity as fundamental elements to understand all sorts of aspects related to the human life. I problematize thus the arrival of such imagery in Brazil, using as central object the main embodiment of this phenomenon: the self-help literature, from Augusto Cury’s book Você é insubstituível (2002).

Keywords: therapy culture, self-help, success, self-esteem, emotions.

Author Biography

Mayka Castellano, Pós-doutoranda no Programa de Pós-Graduação em Comunicação e Cultura da Escola de Comunicação da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (ECO/UFRJ).

Pós-doutoranda no Programa de Pós-Graduação em Comunicação e Cultura da Escola de Comunicação da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (ECO/UFRJ). Doutora pela mesma instituição.

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Published

2015-09-02

Issue

Vol. 17 No. 3 (2015): September/December

Section

Articles

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