Love Yourself

Abstract

The rise of psy discourse has been the subject of considerable academic attention, but one of its most popular and visible forms, the self-help book, has received comparatively little attention. This article provides a Foucauldian analysis of a selection of relationship manuals; it examines the ways in which they set up a relation of the reader’s self to itself, and it explores the ethical valorizations and teleologies therein. The emphasis on the relationship with the self, and the development of mastery over the emotions advocated in the books, is related to the values held in liberal democratic societies.