Inventing our Selves

1996/07/13 by Nikolas Rose · 6 citations
Psychology · #Aesthetics #Autonomy #Identity (music) #Law #Multitude #Philosophy #Political science #Politics #Power (physics) #Psychoanalysis #Psychology #Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications #Social psychology #Sociology

paper · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511752179

openalex publication_date 1996/07/13 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31

Abstract

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. This critical history diagnoses and destabilises our contemporary 'condition' of the self, to help us think differently about the kind of persons we are, or might become.

Cited by

• Rethinking Masculinity Studies: Feminism, Masculinity, and Poststructural Accounts of Agency and Emotional Reflexivity
• Working around a contested diagnosis: Borderline personality disorder in adolescence
• Becoming a Creative City: The Entrepreneurial Mayor, Network Politics and the Promise of an Urban Renaissance
• Research, performance, and doing human geography: some reflections on the diary-photo diary-interview method
• The rise and relevance of qualitative research
• Psychotherapy [wikipedia]