Naslov
Self - Help Literature as the Other Help

Autori
Žurić, Iva

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, neobjavljeni rad, znanstveni

Skup
The Issue of the (Post) Other: Postmodernism and the Other

Mjesto i datum
Zadar, Hrvatska, 10.09.2010. - 12.09.2010

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Nije recenziran

Ključne riječi
self - help literature; psychology; transference; literary transference; identification

Sažetak
This presentation analyzes the genre of popular psychology as a postmodernist text that includes different discourses, such as those of science, biography, and literature. Considering the idea of the Other, the presentation argues that popular psychology is the Other in relation to psychology as a science, which can be traced in that within humanities and social sciences in Croatia there are no texts or studies of popular psychology. Too, regarding its absence in both the institution of psychiatry and in therapy, popular psychology is also the Other in relation to psychiatry. Relationship between a therapist and a patient is the most fundamental dyad in therapy through which the process of mental healing develops, and we can argue that the relationship between the author of self – help literature and the reader is the Other relationship that implicates different processes that at the same time are similar to therapeutic effect. Regarding that topic, the presentation analyzes two facets of transference: transference as a process in therapy and literary transference as a process enabled by the act of reading. In analyzing the self – help, however, some implications of the identity of the Other emerge. Self–help literature relies upon the notion there are readers with emotional problems, such as imbalanced and incomplete identities. The identity that self–help books offer is the Other self that the reader can incorporate in order to become emotionally stable. That Other self in fact becomes the “real self” that each reader can attain reading self–help books. The basic assumption of the self–help books relies upon the idea that we attain our identity in relations with Others. Therefore, it is safe to assume that our identity is formed through Others. As readers reading self–help books, we too are encouraged to regard ourselves as Others. We are being instructed to become objects of our own observation hoping to fulfill the following causal assumption: if we manage to understand ourselves properly we should be able to understand the Others.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Filozofija, Filologija, Znanost o umjetnosti

POVEZANOST RADA