Always look on the bright side of life

Abstract

‘Positive thinking’ is widely advocated and encouraged, particularly in the area of serious illness. Yet what positive thinking really means for people remains elusive. Research undertaken with carers of people with cancer finds that positive thinking affects the experience of cancer. Findings suggest that positive thinking is an effort by carers to minimize stress and harm, which they perceive would follow from expressing negative feelings. However, from a Foucauldian perspective, common social values and discursive systems embedded in participants’ talk reveal institutional practices and power relations. In addition, positive thinking exists in popular discourse as a form of resistance and agency as well as a symptom of governmentality. It is found that the ideology of positive thinking reflects broader neo-liberal, capitalist culture and is therefore an example of ‘technologies of the self’ through which individuals and populations self-regulate so as to preserve health and maintain demographic norms.