Self-help as a glocalised therapeutic assemblage

: Tiaynen-Qadir T, Salmenniemi S

Publisher: SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD

: 2017

: European Journal of Cultural Studies

: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF CULTURAL STUDIES

: EUR J CULT STUD

: 20

: 4

: 381

: 396

: 16

: 1367-5494

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549417718205

This article analyses how therapeutic self-help discourse, as a global form, has been domesticated in contemporary Russia. It proposes the concept of a glocalised therapeutic assemblage to capture the dynamics through which a range of transnational and historical elements are pulled together in self-help. Drawing on analysis of bestselling self-help books and interviews with their readers, the article addresses the domestication and transformation of two paradigmatic features of the self-help genre: the bullet-point' narrative form and the idea of positive thinking. The article identifies three domestication strategies. First, the bullet-point form is domesticated by articulating it with the Russian discourse of culturedness', transforming it into a multilayered intertextual narrative. The second domestication strategy places positive thinking in dialogue with Russian discourses of suffering, while the third fuses positive thinking with historical discourses of spirituality and consciousness, thus subverting the idea of the transformative power of the rational mind. The article concludes by suggesting that the concept of assemblage is helpful in highlighting the situated and variegated forms of self-help and therapeutic culture.