Introduction: Therapeutic Culture

Autor: Stephen Jacobs, Mark Jones, Alan Apperley
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2014
Předmět:
Zdroj: Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research, Vol 6, Iss 4 (2014)
Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research, Vol 6, Iss 4, Pp 725-729 (2014)
ISSN: 2000-1525
Popis: An advertisement for the Miruji Wellbeing Massage Chair promises its users not only a personalised massage designed, amongst other things, to ‘reduce stress’, but also the possibility of transforming a ‘negative mindset’ into a ‘positive “cando” mindset’. This is to be achieved through the simultaneous use of ‘exclusive’ audios which employ the techniques of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). One satisfied customer, cited on the website, testifies to the chair’s ability not only to produce a ‘feeling of total relaxation’, but also to boost its user’s ‘motivation and self-esteem’. If, after your Miruji massage/NLP life-coaching session, your self-esteem is still languishing in the doldrums, you could do no worse than sign up to one of Anthony ‘Tony’ Robbins’ arena-scale motivational weekends such as his Unleash the Power Within (UPW) event, held at the San Jose Convention Centre (audience capacity: 3,900) in June this year (2014). Tickets for this event ranged from $995 for general admission, to $2,595 for a ‘Diamond Premiere’ ticket, which included seating in the front section of the arena (‘Close to Tony!’) and access to ‘Ultimate Edge’ – described (admittedly on Robbins’ own website) as ‘The World’s #1 Personal Development System’ and available to non-attenders for the sum of $299 (+ $14.99 pp). Robbins’ motivational products – themselves based on a version of NLP – cover just about every aspect of life, from personal growth and development, through love, passion, health, energy, fitness (the Robbins brand includes a range of ‘Inner Balance’ health supplements) life and time management, and career advancement. Robbins, of course, is merely one – albeit very successful – purveyor of what might be described variously as ‘self-help’, ‘self-actualization’, or ‘motivational’ products. The scope of such products is now bewildering, ranging from the specific – such as advertisements for L’Oreal hair products exhorting us to buy their products ‘because we’re worth it’ – to the general – whole sections of bookshops devoted to publications (including, of course, CDs and DVDs) now gathered under the catch-all label: ‘Mind, Body, Spirit.’ Bewildering as this may be, one thing seems utterly clear: this broad, diverse field comprises a highly lucrative industry. ‘Self-help’ books regularly appear on the non-fiction best-seller lists and, while statistical analyses of the value of the genre are made difficult by the sheer diversity of texts that might qualify, some commentators claim that ‘self-help remains the world’s bestselling genre’ (Gros
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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