2. The principles of self-help discourse

In this section, we identify some of the prima-facie principles underlying everyday self-help discourse: the power of positive thinking, eliminating negative thinking, gratitude, self-knowledge for self-improvement, and individual choice and responsibility.

Arguably the most fundamental tenet of self-help, and the one that informs all other principles, is the power of positive thinking. While this idea long predates modern psychology—e.g., Norman Peale (Reference Peale1952) already talks about “positive thinking,” drawing inspiration from the nineteenth-century New Thought movement, and Christian thought—it gained academic legitimacy through the rise of “positive psychology.” A key figure in this movement was Martin Seligman, who, after becoming president of the American Psychological Association in 1998, made it his mission to take psychology in a new, positive direction. Positive Psychology promises a science of human happiness and flourishing, arguing that genuine and lasting happiness comes from development of character and “signature strengths.” In Authentic happiness, Seligman (Reference Seligman2017 [Reference Seligman2002]) introduces a formula for understanding happiness: H = S + C + V. According to this model, H refers to one’s enduring levels of happiness, which is determined by three factors: S, our set-range, which is our biological, inherited composition; C, the circumstances in which we live; and V, the voluntary actions, such as developing our strengths and engaging in self-help (Seligman Reference Seligman2017 [Reference Seligman2002], 45). According to Seligman, we cannot change our set-range, but we can move our happiness levels to the top of this range. As for circumstances, Seligman cites numerous studies to argue that, although some of the circumstances presumed to increase happiness do have a positive effect, such as marriage, religion, and a rich social network, others make little to no difference. He claims that to achieve happiness one should not bother to make money, stay healthy, become highly educated, or move to sunnier climates (Seligman Reference Seligman2017 [Reference Seligman2002], 61). In fact, he says, circumstances make a relatively small impact on happiness overall. Instead, he advocates for the impact of voluntary actions, and argues that most people can increase their happiness through voluntary action. He finds support in studies suggesting that, on average, 50 percent of people’s general level of happiness is determined by genetics, and only 10 percent by circumstances, leaving 40 percent under our voluntary control (Solan Reference Solan2021). This is taken as evidence that circumstances do not preclude us from being happy.

When taken up by popular psychology, the power of positive thinking takes a more mystical turn. This principle was popularized by Norman Peale in his 1952 book The power of positive thinking. Peale drew inspiration from the New Thought movement—a spiritual and mental healing movement—combining its ideas with Christian thought (Peale Reference Peale1952). Positive thinking has had a twenty-first-century resurgence, with two of the most famous and best-selling books being The secret by Rhonda Byrne (Reference Byrne2006) and Good vibes, good life: How self-love is the key to unlocking your greatness by Vex King (Reference King2018). Whereas positive psychology has the goal of happiness, popular self-help psychology has the goal of “success” more generally. It is important to note that some positive psychologists are keen to distance themselves from popular psychology, deeming it unscientific. In fact, Seligman dismissed popular psychology as “fraudulent.”Footnote ³ Yet this criticism has not diminished the mass appeal of popular psychology, particularly the type inspired by positive psychology.

At the heart of positive thinking in popular psychology is the Law of Attraction, a New Thought spiritual belief that our thoughts and energy, as they radiate out, will attract “like” energy. Loosely invoking principles from quantum physics, the Law of Attraction claims that positive thoughts attract positive events and experiences and negative thoughts attract negative events and experiences. Byrne refers to thoughts having “frequencies,” and King goes “beyond” the Law of Attraction and prefers “vibrations.” It is proposed that through positive thinking, we can manifest our desires, be they love, money, or health. The Law of Attraction is Byrne’s “secret” and she claims to have used it to attract wealth, success, improve her eyesight (Byrne Reference Byrne2006, 134) and even lose weight (Byrne Reference Byrne2006, 58–59). Following this trend, dating platforms like Elite Singles (e.g., Coetzee Reference Coetzeen.d.) encourage users to “visualize your ideal partner” and to maintain a positive attitude toward oneself and others, suggesting that doing so will attract like-minded, positive individuals and bring true love into their lives.

The other side of the coin is the principle of eliminating negative thinking. According to King (Reference King2018, 20), when we are in a negative mindset, such as hate, anger, or despair, we are vibrating at a lower frequency which will attract more of what we don’t want. In other words, the more negative thoughts we allow, the more negative things we will experience. This is in contrast to the “emotional hydraulic” theory which posits that we need to vent our negative feelings such as anger, because repressed emotions are unhealthy and can come out in destructive ways. Seligman claims the opposite is true, and that dwelling on negativity and expressing anger only leads to more anger and even physical illness (Seligman Reference Seligman2017 [Reference Seligman2002], 69).

A key aspect of the principle of eliminating negative thinking involves removing “negative people” from our lives, so we are not affected by their negative energy. King claims that some people are “allergic to positivity” and that we should be “so positive that they can’t stand to be near you” (King Reference King2018, 120). Eliminating negativity also means eliminating negative talk, according to Byrne (Reference Byrne2006), including talk about illness. According to her, if we are feeling a little unwell, we should not talk about it unless we want more of it (Byrne Reference Byrne2006, 132).

One area where positive thinking in popular psychology and in positive psychology overlap is in the principle of gratitude. Gratitude is “the magic” in Byrne’s (Reference Byrne2012) book of the same name. According to Byrne (Reference Byrne2012), the Law of Attraction will receive grateful thoughts and give you more just like them. Similarly, King (Reference King2018) claims that we “cannot feel joy without being thankful” (50). Gratitude is also one of Seligman’s examples of voluntary action that can make a difference to our happiness. He provides scales with which to measure our gratitude levels, with exercises to improve if our score is low (Seligman Reference Seligman2017 [Reference Seligman2002], 71).

This example of self-assessment brings us to another principle of self-help: self-knowledge for self-improvement. According to this principle, self-knowledge is valuable only insofar as it serves a pragmatic purpose, meaning that any insights gained should be continually developed and improved. Self-help literature is full of self-assessments, questionnaires, and surveys promising that, if we can better understand ourselves, identifying our strengths and weaknesses, we can work to improve ourselves. Seligman provides numerous self-assessment scales, including a scale to assess positive and negative affectivity, general happiness, and potential strengths such as perseverance, kindness, optimism, and appreciation of beauty. Following the principle of positive thinking, we should accept ourselves while also, according to the principle of self-knowledge for self-improvement, working toward being better than we are now.

The final principle is that of individual choice and responsibility. Self-help is about improving oneself, by oneself. Because we have the power to change our own well-being through positive thought, we can choose wellness, success, and happiness. We are responsible for achieving these things for ourselves. King (Reference King2021) claims that, although we cannot change the past, we have the choice to change our future. Ultimately, “it’s your responsibility to heal yourself” (King Reference King2021, 93). This is presented as something liberating and positive.

Notice that even though none of the principles reflected in the most influential works on self-help claims that one should have a positive attitude instead of a negative one, or that one attitude precludes the other; when taken together, the principles of self-help discourse give rise to such dichotomous thinking. Given that some principles encourage positivity, such as positive thinking or gratitude, and others discourage negativity, self-help discourse leaves little space for ambiguous attitudes or emotions. A clear example of how such dichotomous thinking might arise can be found in The secret, where Bob Doyle states, “When people are completely focused on what’s wrong and their symptoms, they will perpetuate it. The healing will not occur until they shift their attention from being sick to being well. Because that’s the law of attraction” (Byrne Reference Byrne2006, 133), or a testimony reported by Barbara Ehrenreich (Reference Ehrenreich2009, 55) of a woman, identified as author and attorney, who attributes the excess of bad news to the inadequate spread of positive thinking among the world’s population. Such statements illustrate how the discourse links well-being to positive focus and implicitly frames negative attention as an obstacle to recovery, reinforcing the underlying dichotomy.

3. Self-help discourse and victim-blaming

A first criticism of everyday self-help discourse is that, when applied in contexts of systemic oppression, it contributes to victim-blaming. In this section, we argue that this happens because self-help discourse makes three interrelated assumptions, all of which contribute to victim-blaming. These assumptions are: psychological authority, hyper-individualized meritocracy, and no excuses.

First, self-help discourse assumes psychological authority. The rise of self-help was in part motivated by a move away from the biomedical model of wellness, with its knowledge guarded by medical authorities. In self-help we are still being told to defer to experts, but they are those in psychology (whether clinically trained or not). This deference to professionals “acting at a distance” means that we have to take complete responsibility for our self-improvement, assuming psychologically defined benchmarks for politically and culturally laden concepts such as “success” and “wellness.” When we take questionnaires and self-surveys to discover the “truth” about ourselves, we are measuring ourselves against narrow, and even simplistic, criteria. This is reflective of what Heidi Rimke (Reference Rimke2000) calls a “psychologistically oriented culture” in which psychology is seen as the expert knowledge.Footnote ⁴ Combined with hyper-individualism we have an “extensive essentialist psychologization of the self in everyday life” where psychology is seen as able to make us happy and “normal” (Rimke Reference Rimke2000, 62–63). The assumption is that all human conflicts, even the structural and historical ones, are personal psychological problems that can be solved individually, resorting to the proper experts through enough “reading, guidance, determination and industriousness” (Rimke Reference Rimke2000, 73). A clear example of such a position in everyday self-help discourse is Barbara Ehrenreich’s (Reference Ehrenreich2009) experience following her diagnosis of breast cancer. Ehrenreich posted on the message board at Komen.org, a major US breast cancer organization, where she titled her post “Angry” and expressed frustration with chemotherapy as well as with what she described as the movement’s “sappy pink ribbons.” Rather than receiving support, she was met with rebukes for her “unhelpful attitude,” with one commenter urging her to “run, not walk, to some counseling” to get some help (2009, 32). In situations of oppression, the psychological effects of that oppression are likely to be attributed to the oppressed themselves. In other words, those suffering from oppression are likely to be blamed for their failure to cope with or even overcome the psychological impact of oppression.

This leads to the second assumption of self-help discourse that contributes to victim-blaming: hyper-individualized meritocracy, a term used by Gaston Franssen (Reference Franssen2020) in his discussion of self-care. Certain versions of self-help perpetuate hyper-individualized, meritocratic ideals, fueled by neoliberalism. Paul Heelas states that in this highly individualized meritocracy the individual is believed to be driven by “self-motivation,” “self-reliance,” engaging in “self-help,” and becoming “self-made” (1991, 77–78). The dark side of this is that individuals are responsible not only for their own “success” but also their own “failure.” As Franssen (Reference Franssen2020) puts it, in what he calls a “hyper-individualized meritocracy” any type of “doing well,” including recovery from illness, or self-improvement more generally, is perceived as the result of personal responsibility and ambition, with limitation as the result of individual failure. We are told that “individuals possess the ability to choose happiness over unhappiness, success over failure and even health over illness” (Rimke Reference Rimke2000, 73). In contexts of systemic oppression, this high individualism diverts attention from structural inequalities, placing the burden of dealing with oppression on the individuals suffering from it. As Rimke (Reference Rimke2000) claims, a life of self-help negates the public sphere and its responsibility. As a consequence, this ethos is “bound to be unhelpful for those struggling with social inequalities, economic disadvantage, or … chronic mental illness” (Franssen Reference Franssen2020, 102). Indeed, it has been shown that for people with mental disorders such as bipolar disorder, the internalization of meritocratic worldviews—according to which individuals’ perceived success or failure is and ought to be the result of their own efforts (or lack thereof)—results in self-stigmatization and increased feelings of guilt or shame (Rüsch et al. Reference Rüsch, Todd, Bodenhausen and Corrigan2010).

This view on people’s responsibility over their own “success” or “failure” leads to the third assumption of self-help discourse contributing to victim-blaming: no excuses. As we have already seen, positive psychologists claim that circumstances have a minimal effect on happiness, so dwelling on circumstances will be fruitless compared to changing what is in our voluntary control. For instance, Seligman rejects many of the factors that we might have thought impacted happiness, including money, health, race, education, or race (2002, 61), and does not allow childhood trauma as a justification for one’s present personality. As he puts it, “Bad childhood events, in short, do not mandate adult troubles” (2002, 67).Footnote ⁵ Yet, as Barbara Ehrenreich points out, if circumstances play only a small role in human happiness, then ‘policy is a marginal exercise’ (2009, 171). And, as Ehrenreich (Reference Ehrenreich2009) aims to suggest, this is a hugely damaging implication. For example, we know that those who are socially and economically disadvantaged experience inequality in accessing high-quality mental healthcare in the UK (Lowther-Payne et al. Reference Lowther-Payne, Ushakova, Beckwith, Liberty, Edge and Lobban2023). Yet the hidden message of self-help is that this inequality is only an excuse, and that one is presenting oneself as a victim and this will hinder personal growth. In King’s words, “if you always play the victim when something goes wrong, life always treats you like one. Don’t let your circumstances define your future” (2018, 239). Similarly, Seligman (Reference Seligman2017 [Reference Seligman2002], 68) refers to “the victimology that has swept America since the glorious beginnings of the civil rights movement and which threatens to overtake the rugged individualism and sense of individual responsibility that used to be this nation’s hallmark.”

Not only does everyday self-help discourse overlook the impact of one’s circumstances on one’s well-being—and therefore the impact of social policies—it also ignores the influence that people can have on their circumstances, while simultaneously sanctioning them for failing to change those very circumstances. This tension arises because, while everyday self-help discourse is strongly influenced by positive psychology—which draws a sharp distinction between one’s circumstances and one’s voluntary actions, such as one’s attitudes—it presents a simplified version of these ideas, mixed with other, sometimes inconsistent frameworks. As a result, everyday self-help discourse produces an internal inconsistency: it is not clear whether “circumstances” are to be understood as fixed and external, or as elements that people can actively change through effort and determination. This ambiguity blurs the boundary between what is within one’s control and what is not, both assuming that people can improve their social circumstances, while overlooking the structural realities that constrain such action. Consequently, when people from marginalized groups complain about their discrimination, they might be sanctioned for both not focusing on what they can control and failing to have a positive attitude, and for not taking steps to improve their life conditions.

Apart from victim-blaming, the everyday use of self-help discourse in contexts of systemic oppression is likely to perpetuate other harms. Insights from recent political turns in epistemology and philosophy of emotions can help illuminate these other harms. In section 4 we focus on the epistemic harms of self-help discourse, and in section 5, on the affective ones.

4. The epistemic harms of self-help discourse

The everyday use of self-help discourse in contexts of oppression risks victim-blaming, as we have argued, but it also causes epistemic harms. In particular, in this section we argue that self-help contributes to perpetuating a knowledge imbalance among social identities, not only by encouraging members of those social identities to remain silent against their oppression because they need to eliminate negative talk, but also by promoting certain social practices that generate testimonial smothering (Dotson Reference Dotson2011) and hermeneutical injustice (Fricker Reference Fricker2007), which further obscure and silence the experiences of certain oppressed groups. To argue so, we first introduce the notion of epistemic capacity and its relationship to social identities. Then, we discuss how self-help discourse contributes to testimonial smothering and hermeneutical injustice by exploiting the three assumptions of self-help mentioned above. Let’s get into it.

From a social perspective, being recognized as a knower—for the gaining, keeping, and sharing of knowledge (Cassam Reference Cassam2019, 12)—involves being perceived by at least part of the community as a credible source of knowledge, as someone who possesses knowledge (Fricker Reference Fricker2007). That is, in order to be considered a knower you need to receive attributions of credibility and knowledge (Almagro et al. Reference Almagro, Navarro and Pinedo2021; Spewak Reference Spewak2021).This is because what counts as knowledge, and who counts as a knower, is the product of our common epistemic practices (Fricker Reference Fricker2007; Medina Reference Medina2013).

Being recognized as a knower gives you more epistemic capacity,Footnote ⁶ namely the ability to participate meaningfully in shared epistemic practices.Footnote ⁷ If someone is not perceived as a knower by anyone, then they lack the capacity, or at least are significantly impaired in their capacity, to successfully participate in the regular practices of gaining, keeping, and sharing knowledge, and therefore have a very limited capacity to produce and share knowledge. In such a case, they may not have knowledge at all, since to have knowledge we need to be recognized as a possessor of knowledge by some—after all, from a purely first-person perspective, knowledge cannot be distinguished from mere belief. One of the functions of our shared epistemic practices is determining what counts as knowledge. Consequently, those who are already recognized as knowers are better positioned to shape what counts as knowledge and who counts as a knower.Footnote ⁸ Because epistemic practices are structured by the community—through both institutional and non-institutional practices—those who have greater access to, and authority within, these practices have greater epistemic capacity, which, in turn, leads to additional attributions of credibility and knowledge.Footnote ⁹ As a result, recognition as a knower is self-reinforcing: it both enables and perpetuates one’s epistemic capacity to participate in, and shape, collective epistemic practices.

In this sense, knowledge is understood in terms of someone’s epistemic capacity: the more one is able to participate in shared epistemic practices, the more one is attributed credibility and knowledge.

It is also a common idea that someone’s epistemic capacity is partly determined by their social power, understood as a socially situated capacity to affect others (Fricker Reference Fricker2007; Medina Reference Medina2013). For instance, a psychiatrist or a police officer have more epistemic power and capacity than a pedestrian: in court, for example, their testimonies receive extra weight. If you’ve ever contested a traffic ticket, you know that a conviction is often based solely on the officer’s testimony. But epistemic capacity doesn’t just stem from formally institutionalized practices, as the ones related to being a police officer or a psychiatrist. Celebrities, such as Oprah Winfrey, for instance, would have more epistemic capacity than the waitress at the corner café, since they have more capacity to influence people’s opinions and actions.Footnote ¹⁰ Winfrey, as it happens, has been a key figure in the promotion of self-help culture, endorsing The secret, which particularly popularized the Law of Attraction and the principle of positive thinking (e.g., Gravois, Reference Gravois2007). These two subjects, as knowers, differentiate from each other in their capacity to participate and influence in our regular epistemic practices because of their differences regarding social power.

Social power also depends on identity factors. For instance, all things being equal, in Spain, the likelihood of a white British or Danish man to receive knowledge attributions after giving testimony is much higher than that of a Romanian woman. Historically marginalized identities have less epistemic capacity, in the sense that they have less social power, namely, a limited capacity to participate in our everyday practices of knowledge production and exchange (see also Dotson Reference Dotson2012). The unjust social norms, biases, and stereotypes associated with disenfranchised social identities constrain their social power, and thus unjustly limit their epistemic capacity, making them victims of epistemic injustice (Fricker Reference Fricker2007). Broadly speaking, epistemic injustice, as defined by Fricker (Reference Fricker2007, 20), occurs when someone is wronged specifically in their capacity as a knower.

In a structuralist framework, someone’s epistemic capacity is usually depicted in terms of the nodes they occupy in the social structure. Sally Haslanger describes a social structure as a network of social relationships shaped by practices (Haslanger Reference Haslanger2015a, 2015b; see also Ayala Reference Ayala2018; Ayala and Vasilyeva Reference Ayala, Vasilyeva, Dale, Carolyn Jennings, Maglio, David, Warlaumont and Yoshimi2015). These practices place individuals in specific nodes within the network, and each node allows the person in it to perform a limited set of things. In certain nodes of the network, one is taken to be a knower. However, access to these epistemic nodes is unfairly restricted by unjust norms and stereotypes—such as sexism, racism, and classism—which limit the social power of certain individuals. The norms and practices that lead people from certain disenfranchised identities to unjustly receive less credibility than they deserve when giving testimony are the same norms and practices that prevent them from occupying certain epistemic nodes in the social structure.

Epistemic injustice is certainly not suffered by every single member of disadvantaged groups, but it is structural and, in relevant cases, persistent (Fricker Reference Fricker2007, 29). It forms part of a larger pattern of injustice influenced by social and economic factors, which amplify its effects on individuals. For example, not being given proper recognition as a knower will make it even harder for someone with limited financial resources to access mental health services or to become informed about systemic gender violence.

Self-help discourse, through its principles and assumptions, contributes to perpetuating such an epistemic capacity imbalance among social identities by promoting certain social practices that obscure and silence the experiences of certain oppressed groups, and thus prevent them from occupying certain epistemic nodes, or shifting between them—e.g., shifting their epistemic roles as informant, critic, testifier, questioner, etc.—and thus engage in different kinds of epistemic practices—such as informing, criticizing, testifying, questioning, etc. which is relevant for developing epistemic agency.

An implication of the principles of self-help discourse is that systemic problems, such as mental health struggles resulting from gender inequality or class differences, are framed merely as matters of attitude. They are considered problems which can be addressed individually by cultivating positive thinking, eliminating negativity, showing gratitude, and using one’s self-knowledge for self-improvement.Footnote ¹¹ As mentioned in previous sections, self-help is about improving oneself, by oneself. Consequently, those suffering from systemic problems are told it is because they are not really trying to change their lives, or have not eliminated negative talk and are attracting bad energy. In an endorsement of the principles of self-help, they are told to eliminate negative thinking and to cultivate positive thinking: “Believe in yourself,” “Empower yourself,” “Love yourself.” Of course, it is important to love and believe in yourself. However, apart from blaming the victim, this discourse promotes a way of living that potentially silences and epistemically harms those who experience gender inequality and mental health struggles. Specifically, because of the psychological authority, hyper-individualized meritocracy, and no excuses assumptions of this discourse, its use in contexts of oppression leads to practices that can result in testimonial smothering and hermeneutical injustice.

Kristie Dotson defines testimonial smothering as “the truncating of one’s own testimony in order to ensure that the testimony contains only content for which one’s audience demonstrates testimonial competence” (2011, 244). According to her, cases of testimonial smothering are characterized by three distinctive conditions: “1) the content of the testimony must be unsafe and risky; 2) the audience must demonstrate testimonial incompetence with respect to the content of the testimony to the speaker; and 3) testimonial incompetence must follow from, or appear to follow from, pernicious ignorance” (Dotson Reference Dotson2011, 244). Thus, testimonial smothering occurs when a person truncates their testimony and refrains from sharing certain information because their audience, due to their pernicious ignorance of the topic of that testimony, might easily find it unreasonable and form false beliefs that could cause further harm to the victim. The speaker realizes that their audience may not properly understand their testimony and then restrict it.

From a structural point of view, it could be said that in such cases there are no relevant practices and social norms in place—or they are designed to unfairly disadvantage certain groups—allowing certain people to share their experiences and testimonies. Thus, testimonial smothering does not need to be understood as a conscious phenomenon. The victim might restrict their speech subconsciously, as a result of correctly following certain unjust norms and practices. Saray Ayala (Reference Ayala2016) explains a similar idea in terms of speech affordances: a speaker might not have certain speech acts available, since the practices in place erode the possibility for people occupying certain nodes to make certain things with their words, or when certain speech acts are available, they impose painful trade-offs. Thus, testimonial smothering can occur simply because one does not have the speech capacity to perform certain speech acts. To be clear, our application preserves Dotson’s requirement that an audience demonstrate testimonial incompetence with respect to the relevant content. In the self-help environments we target, that demonstration is structural and advance-signaled by the rules of public uptake of a given practice: avoid “negative talk,” cultivate gratitude, and construe hardship as a mindset problem subject to individual control. These rules make it predictable that testimony about harassment, illness, or structural disadvantage will be received as “negativity,” “playing the victim,” or a failure of self-management. For example, popular self-help explicitly counsels avoiding talk of illness, distancing oneself from “negative people,” and warns against dwelling on negative affect. Such norms supply the speaker with precisely the evidence Dotson requires to judge the audience incompetent with respect to this content, and thereby render full testimony unsafe. In these settings, smothering is a rational—often pre-reflective—response to demonstrated incompetence.

Self-help discourse promotes the conditions under which certain oppressed people do not have the speech capacity to perform certain speech acts. Recall that self-help discourse covertly enacts practices governed by the following assumptions: we must defer to experts (psychological authority), individuals have the responsibility to improve their situations (hyper-individualized meritocracy), and circumstances have a minimal effect on happiness (no excuses). Thus, within such a practice, trying to share one’s experiences in cases of gender inequality or mental health suffering might be unsafe and risky, since it can be perceived as an indication that one is not trying hard enough to remove negativity from one’s life. The discursive norms introduced by self-help discourse could prevent some people from expressing their experiences because, as mentioned, it places the responsibility of well-being on the individual’s power to overcome difficulties. When audiences are steeped in self-help norms and practices, they will probably show testimonial incompetence, thus leading oppressed people to truncate their own testimony.

Finally, a group can face hermeneutical injustice not only by being deprived of certain concepts, as Fricker (Reference Fricker2007) famously argued, but also when, despite the existence of a relevant concept, its application is limited by the presence of competing and distorting concepts which are supported by epistemically and socially powerful rules and practices (Falbo Reference Falbo2022; Mason Reference Mason, Khoo and Sterken2021).Footnote ¹² In this sense, it is clear why self-help discourse could end up generating hermeneutical injustice. The framework behind the conceptual resources promoted by self-help discourse such as “the Law of Attraction,” or its manifestations in “the power of positive thinking” or “the need to eliminate negative thinking,” is incompatible with the framework underlying other available—although blocked—concepts, such as mental health struggle or structural inequality. This way, the necessary discursive practices that allow certain individuals to better understand and share their experiences are significantly constrained. This is especially harmful for oppressive experiences, where having the means to share and communicate knowledge about them is crucial to alleviate such harmful situations.

5. The affective harms of self-help

As we have previously seen, the everyday use of self-help discourse in contexts of oppression can risk victim-blaming, and perpetuating forms of epistemic injustice, such as testimonial smothering and hermeneutical injustice. In this section, we introduce the concept of affective injustice and use it to highlight the affective harms that might arise when self-help discourse is applied in the face of systemic oppression. We argue that self-help discourse reinforces oppression by adding emotional burdens in different ways to the oppressed, dismissing their emotional experiences, and imposing the emotional norms of the dominant group, which are all forms of affective injustice.

The concept of affective injustice has recently emerged from political and feminist approaches to philosophy of emotion. It captures a form of injustice related to people’s emotional experiences. More specifically, the concept of affective injustice is defined as a wrong done to someone in their capacity as affective beings (Archer and Matheson Reference Archer and Matheson2022; Archer and Mills Reference Archer and Mills2019); in distributive terms, as the morally objectionable deprivation of the affective goods that someone is owed (Gallegos Reference Gallegos2021); or from a structural angle, a set of affective norms, practices, and relationships which are embedded in our social conditions of injustice (Stockdale Reference Stockdale2023). This type of injustice highlights the political and ethical dimensions of emotions, presenting them not just as private experiences, but as matters of justice and moral concern. It also highlights the affective costs of injustice, complementing its economic and social costs (Krueger Reference Krueger2023).

Affective injustice can operate in interpersonal contexts, but it can also operate at a broader social scale.Footnote ¹³ As we argue in this section, a complete account of the affective harms of self-help discourse in contexts of systemic oppression must consider its impact both in interpersonal contexts and, especially, within social and intergenerational systems.

6. The principles of self-help discourse: revisited

Having explored the harms that self-help discourse causes, we can now revisit its underlying principles and uncover what they entail when applied to contexts of systemic oppression. Despite the focus of self-help discourse on individual responsibility to change one’s circumstances, the fact remains that some people are victims of circumstance, environment, and inequality. Not only does self-help discourse fail to recognize this, but its use in contexts of systemic oppression also leads to further harms, as we have argued. In what follows, we show how the underlying principles of self-help discourse contribute to these harms, particularly by reinforcing victim-blaming, and epistemic and affective forms of injustice.

First, as used in everyday self-help discourse, the power of positive thinking suggests that the power to improve people’s well-being lies in their own thoughts, particularly in their positive attitude toward life events. Understood in this way, this principle reinforces victim-blaming because it entails that if victims of oppression do not “succeed” then they have not harnessed this inner power, which would be a personal deficit.Footnote ¹⁶ It also reinforces certain practices that prevent disenfranchised groups from occupying certain epistemic nodes in society, thus making these people prone to suffering testimonial smothering and hermeneutical injustice. Additionally, it reinforces affective injustice by placing an extra burden on the oppressed, who are now responsible for managing their emotions without fighting or resisting the oppression they suffer, in order to fit into an emotional regime that benefits their oppressors. An illustration of how everyday self-help discourse can translate into victim-blaming, testimonial smothering, hermeneutical injustice, unjust demands of emotional regulation, and imposition of certain feeling rules is, for instance, Barbara Ehrenreich’s (Reference Ehrenreich2009) aforementioned experience of expressing her anger and frustration on a breast cancer support forum after her diagnosis, and being disciplined for failing to display the expected positive attitude.

Secondly, eliminating negativity is also interpreted as a personal deficit, that individuals are “attracting” negative events into their lives.Footnote ¹⁷ For instance, Byrne (Reference Byrne2006, 129–30) has a whole section of The secret on health, including examples of people healing themselves from cancer (even cases deemed incurable) through eliminating negativity and choosing laughter instead. She uses these examples to argue that, when people are unwell, ‘our thought was responsible’ (Byrne Reference Byrne2006, 130). On the epistemic front, this is another key piece of the pernicious discourse that reinforces the practices that prevent certain people from occupying certain epistemic nodes. In the realm of affect, this principle entails dismissing the negative emotional experiences of the oppressed, and pressuring them to suppress their feelings in a way that reinforces and sustains their oppression.

Thirdly, the principle of gratitude, especially when combined with the principle of eliminating negativity, can lead to the view that complaining shows a failure to be grateful and to avoid negativity. Within self-help discourse, gratitude is often encouraged as a way of fostering positivity and well-being, while negativity is portrayed as counterproductive or even harmful. Taken together, these principles discourage people from challenging unjust social structures, out of fear of being perceived as “playing the victim.” This is illustrated in the quote by Lisa Nicholls, CEO of Motivating the Masses and Motivating the Teen Spirit, reported by Byrne: “Recognize the beautiful and wonderful things around you, and bless and praise them. And on the other side, the things that aren’t currently working the way you want them to work, don’t spend your energy faulting or complaining” (Reference Byrne2006, 151). As illustrated in the quote, complaining is demonized rather than being seen as a legitimate spotlight on social injustices. Unhappiness is framed as a lack of gratitude, and people should not express anger. Care must be taken not to be seen as one of those “negative people” which must be eliminated from each other’s lives. Furthermore, when the principle of gratitude is coupled with the principle of eliminating negativity it can be weaponized in ways that promote passivity, and hinder any possibility of social change.

Fourthly, self-knowledge for self-improvement is really a means to judge oneself according to simplistic benchmarks set by psychological “experts”—although many of these would be better described as influencers than psychological experts. We try to discover our “true self” through self-help, but really, we are being told to improve and to conform to ideals of individualism. We defer to psychology to know what “healthy” and “normal” look like but if we do not achieve it then that is our own doing.

Fifthly, individual choice and responsibility become tools of oppression and victim-blaming, as it is thought that it is our individual efforts and self-discipline which dictate “success.” Lack of success is the result of a lack of discipline, once again a personal deficit. This principle, far from its promise of liberation and autonomy, reinforces the norms of a hyper-individualized meritocracy which deflects from the public and political sphere, blaming the victim for their own marginalization.

Those engaging with self-help will be doing so in order to improve some aspect of their lives, often their physical or mental health. Many of these individuals will be the victims of the environment and unjust social structures. Yet by placing the sole responsibility for well-being on the individual’s power of positive thinking, and minimizing the role of circumstances, we victim-blame. Moreover, the discourse built on the underlying principles and assumptions of self-help discourse enacts practices that epistemically and affectively harm the most vulnerable, further marginalizing them by labeling them as deficient in some way, silencing any attempt to complain or change policy.