ENGLISH

Inventing our Selves: Psychology, Power, and Personhood

By Nikolas Rose

Book information

Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Year
1998
ISBN
0521646073, 9780521646079
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
768 kB (786036 bytes)
Series
Cambridge Studies in the History of Psychology
Pages
236\314
Topic
History
Time added
2011-06-04 13:46:07

Description

Inventing Our Selves proposes a radical new approach to the analysis of our current regime of the self, and the values of autonomy, identity, individuality, liberty and choice that animate it. It argues that psychology, psychiatry, psychotherapy and other "psy" disciplines have played a key role in "inventing our selves," changing the ways in which human beings understand and act upon themselves, and how they are acted upon by politicians, managers, doctors, therapists and a multitude of other authorities. These mutations are intrinsically linked to recent changes in ways of understanding and exercising political power, which have stressed the values of autonomy, personal responsibility and choice. The aim of this critical history is to diagnose and destabilize our contemporary "condition" of the self, to help us think differently about the kind of persons we are, or might become.

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