Self-help and the “spirit of our time”

Abstract

The main purpose of this article is to examine some possible explanations for the editorial success of self-help segment since the last decades of the twentieth century. Four hypothesis have been developed in this direction: 1) we are living in a more reflexive time that makes room for self-help recipes and models; 2) other forms of rationality, contrary to Max Weber views, make room for self-help wisdom; 3) self-help has an important therapeutic function in a time that lives the dilemmas of late modernity; 4) the competence model that rules the contemporary organizational imaginary makes room for the lessons of self-help. Examining these explanations we will discuss in which ways the particular characteristics of our time make room for self-help.