Performance and authenticity, individual and global changes: a sociological perspective on some so-called paradoxes of the self-help movement

Abstract

Self-help is a social, economic and
cultural phenomenon, which has had an increasing
importance in several domains, and in particular in
the business area. Besides the various forms it can
take, its moral message is that it is possible, for each
individual and whatever the problems/he may know,
to discover in herself or himself resources that make
it possible to reach individual and even collective
well-being. This idea, which is so common today, is
nonetheless the consequence of a history. This article
presents this history, and investigates, from a sociological point of view, its meaning and implications.