This article provides a Foucauldian analysis of the politics of self-help books on depression, via a case study of David Burns's top-selling and clinically recommended book Feeling Good — The New Mood Therapy. The article draws on the governmentality literature inspired by Foucault's work, particularly Nikolas Rose's analysis of psychological expertise as a technology of liberal government. The aim is to understand how and to what effects self-help texts construct truths about depression. The central argument is that psychological expertise is arranged in Feeling Good to confer truthfulness, technical authority and ethical legitimacy upon the self-help advice, and to encourage readers to regulate their conduct according to liberal virtues. This has the effect of stifling debate about depression, disavowing the socio-political context in which individuals become depressed, and promoting a model of `active citizenship' that limits how individuality can be expressed.
Allwood, R. (1996) `I Have Depression, Don't I? Discourses of Help and Self-help Books', in E. Burnman (ed.) Psychology Discourse Practices. London: Taylor & Francis.
2.
Ashfield, J. (2007) Taking Care of Yourself and Your Family - A Resource Book for Good Mental Health. Adelaide: Peacock Publications.
3.
Bell, G. (2005) `The Worried Well - The Depression Epidemic and the Medicalisation of Our Sorrows', Quarterly Essay18: 1-74.
4.
Burns, D. (1999) Feeling Good - The New Mood Therapy. New York: Avon Books (HarperCollins).
5.
Chesters, J. (2005) `Deinstitutionalisation: An Unrealised Desire' , Health Sociology Review14(3): 272-82.
6.
Cruikshank, B. (1994) `The Will to Empower: Technologies of Citizenship and the War on Poverty', Socialist Review23(4): 29-55.
7.
Dean, M. (1999) Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society . London: Sage Publications.
8.
Dean, M. (2007) Governing Societies: Political Perspectives on Domestic and International Rule. Berkshire: Open University Press.
9.
Dean, M. and B. Hindess (1998) `Introduction: Government, Liberalism and Society' , in M. Dean and B. Hindess (eds) Governing Australia: Studies in Contemporary Rationalities of Government. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.
10.
Department of Health and Ageing, Australia. ( 2008) Better Access to Mental Health Care - Brochure for Consumers and Carers, URL (consulted September 2008): http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/mental-pubs-b-better
11.
Foucault, M. (1982) `The Subject and Power', pp. 208-26 in H. Dreyfus and P. Rabinow, Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. Brighton: Harvester.
12.
Foucault, M. (1994) `Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth', in P. Rabinow (ed.) The Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1954-1984. New York: The New York Press.
13.
Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
14.
Gordon, C. (1991) `Governmental Rationality: An Introduction', in G. Burchell, C. Gordon and P. Miller (eds) The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. Chicago : University of Chicago Press.
15.
Hazelden, R. (2003) `Love Yourself: The Relationship of the Self with Itself in Popular Self-help Texts', Journal of Sociology39: 413-28.
16.
Healy, D. (2004) Let Them Eat Prozac - The Unhealthy Relationship between the Pharmaceutical Industry and Depression. New York: New York University Press.
17.
Healy, D., M. Savage, P. Michael, M. Harris, D. Hirst, M. Carter et al. (2001) `Psychiatric Bed Utilisation: 1896 and 1996 compared', Psychological Medicine31: 779-90.
18.
Hochschild, A. (1994) `The Commercial Spirit of Intimate Life and the Abduction of Feminism: Signs from Women's Advice Books', Theory, Culture & Society11(2): 1-24.
19.
Horwitz, A. and J. Wakefield (2007) The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow into Depressive Disorder. New York: Oxford University Press.
20.
Joshua, J.M. and D. DiMenna (2000) Read Two Books and Let's Talk about them Next Week: Using Bibliotherapy in Clinical Practice. New York: Wiley.
21.
Jorm, A.F., H. Christensen, K.M. Griffiths and B. Rodgers (2002) `Effectiveness of Complementary and Self-help Treatments for Depression', Medical Journal of Australia176 (Suppl.): 84-96.
22.
Karp, D.A. (1996) Speaking of Sadness: Depression, Disconnection and the Meanings of Illness. New York: Oxford University Press.
23.
Katz, W. and L. Sternberg-Katz (1985) Self-help: 1400 Best Books on Personal Growth. New York: Bowker .
24.
Klerman, G.L. (1988) `The Current Age of Youthful Melancholia: Evidence for an Increase in Depression among Adolescents and Young Adults', British Journal of Psychiatry152: 4-14.
25.
Klerman, G.L. and M.M. Weissman (1989) `Increasing Rates of Depression', Journal of the American Medical Association261: 2229-35.
26.
Lasch, C. (1979) The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. New York: Warner Books.
27.
Lemke, T. (2000) `Foucault, Governmentality and Critique', paper presented at the Rethinking Marxism Conference, University of Amherst, 21-4 September.
28.
Lemke, T. (2004) `Disposition and Determinism - Genetic Diagnostics in Risk Society', Sociological Review52(4): 550-66.
29.
Lichterman, P. (1992) `Self-help Reading as Thin Culture', Media, Culture & Society14: 421-47.
30.
McGee, M. (2005) Self-help, Inc.: Makeover Culture in American Life . New York: Oxford University Press .
31.
Moncrieff, J. (2006) `Psychiatric Drug Promotion and the Politics of Neoliberalism', British Journal of Psychiatry1188: 301-2.
32.
Moskowitz, E.S. (2001) In Therapy We Trust: America's Obsessions with Self-fulfilment. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
33.
Murray, C.J. and A.D. Lopez (1996) The Global Burden of Disease: A Comprehensive Assesment of Mortality and Disability from Diseases, Injuries and Risk Factors in 1990 and Projected to 2020. Cambridge, MA: Harvard School of Public Health on behalf of the World Health Organization and the World Bank.
34.
Pardeck, J.T. (1993) Using Bibliotherapy in Clinical Practice: A Guide to Self-help Books. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
35.
Rieff, P. (1987) The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith after Freud, 2nd edn. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
36.
Rimke, H.M. (2000) `Governing Citizens through Self-help Literature' , Cultural Studies14: 61-78.
37.
Rose, N. (1989) Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self. London: Routledge.
38.
Rose, N. (1996) Inventing Our Selves: Psychology, Power and Personhood . New York: Cambridge University Press.
39.
Rose, N. (1999) Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought . New York: Cambridge University Press.
40.
Rose, N. (2003) `Neurochemical Selves', Society November/December: 46-59.
41.
Ross, C. (2006) The Aesthetics of Disengagement - Contemporary Art and Depression. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
42.
Rowe, Y.M. (2006) `Beyond the Vulnerable Self: The "Resisting Reader" of Marriage Manuals for Heterosexual Women', paper presented to The Second Annual Rhizomes: Re-visioning Boundaries Conference of the School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Queensland, 24-5 February.
43.
Santrock, J.W. (1994) The Authoritative Guide to Self-help Books. New York: Guilford Press.
44.
Scogin, F., C. Jamison and K. Gochneaur (1989) `The Comparative Efficacy of Cognitive and Behavioural Bibliotherapy for Mildly and Moderately Depressed Older Adults', Journal of Constulting and Clinical Psychology57(3): 403-7.
45.
Simonds, W. (1992) Women and Self-help Culture: Reading Between the Lines. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
46.
Smith, N., M. Floyd, F. Scogin and C. Jamison (1997) `Three-year Follow-up of Bibliotherapy for Depression' , Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology65(2): 324-7.
47.
Starker, S. (1989) Oracle at the Supermarket: The American Preoccupation with Self-help Books. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
48.
Stoppard, J. (2000) Understanding Depression: Feminist Social Constructionist Approaches. London: Routledge.
49.
Weir, L. (2006) Pregnancy, Risk and Biopolitics: On the Threshold of the Living Subject. London: Routledge.
50.
Whelan, C. (2004) `Self-help Books and the Quest for Self-control in the United States 1950-2000', PhD diss., Oxford University .
51.
White, K. (2002) An Introduction to the Sociology of Health and Illness. London: SAGE.
52.
World Health Organization (2001) World Health Report 2001, Mental Health: New Understanding, New Hope. Geneva: World Health Organization.
