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ECS0010.1177/1367549417718205European Journal of Cultural StudiesTiaynen-Qadir and Salmenniemi

european journal of
Article

European Journal of Cultural Studies

2017, Vol. 20(4) 381­–396
Self-help as a glocalised © The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1367549417718205
https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549417718205
journals.sagepub.com/home/ecs

Tatiana Tiaynen-Qadir
and Suvi Salmenniemi
University of Turku, Finland

Abstract
This article analyses how therapeutic self-help discourse, as a global form, has
been domesticated in contemporary Russia. It proposes the concept of a glocalised
therapeutic assemblage to capture the dynamics through which a range of
transnational and historical elements are pulled together in self-help. Drawing on
analysis of bestselling self-help books and interviews with their readers, the article
addresses the domestication and transformation of two paradigmatic features
of the self-help genre: the ‘bullet-point’ narrative form and the idea of positive
thinking. The article identifies three domestication strategies. First, the bullet-point
form is domesticated by articulating it with the Russian discourse of ‘culturedness’,
transforming it into a multilayered intertextual narrative. The second domestication
strategy places positive thinking in dialogue with Russian discourses of suffering,
while the third fuses positive thinking with historical discourses of spirituality and
consciousness, thus subverting the idea of the transformative power of the rational
mind. The article concludes by suggesting that the concept of assemblage is helpful in
highlighting the situated and variegated forms of self-help and therapeutic culture.

Keywords
Assemblage, domestication, glocalisation, positive thinking, Russia, self-help,
therapeutic culture, transnationalisation

Introduction
Self-help is a highly visible and influential phenomenon in contemporary societies. It is a
paradigmatic example of the broader therapeutic culture, referring to the cultural

Corresponding author:
Tatiana Tiaynen-Qadir, Department of Social Research, University of Turku, Assistentinkatu 7,
Turku FI-20014, Finland.
Email: tatiana.tiaynen@ttaq.fi
382 European Journal of Cultural Studies 20(4)

domination and authority of psy-knowledges in making sense of human life and the social
world (Illouz, 2008; Rose, 1990, 1998). As a multi-mediated and multifarious cultural
practice, self-help circulates in the form of books, motivational speeches and seminars,
reality TV and talk shows, and women’s and lifestyle magazines. It draws together psy-
chological, spiritual, religious and scientific systems of knowledge in the attempt to act
upon and transform one’s relationship with oneself and others (see Foucault, 1988). It
problematises and probes selfhood by formulating ‘ethical substances’ in need of thera-
peutic intervention, introducing techniques of knowing and working on the self, and offer-
ing normative ideas of how we should live our lives (Foucault, 1990: 32).
This article explores self-help as a global form that has ‘a distinctive capacity for
decontextualisation and recontextualisation, abstractability and movement, across
diverse social and cultural situations and spheres of life’ (Collier and Ong, 2005: 1, 4).
More specifically, we examine how two core features of the globally circulating self-help
– the ‘bullet-point’ narrative form and the idea of positive thinking (Woodstock, 2005)
– are domesticated in Russia, and how the genre transforms as it is articulated with a set
of locally and cultural historically embedded discourses. Our analysis draws on bestsell-
ing self-help literature written for the Russian reading audience, published during the
2000s, and interviews with readers of this genre. We argue that self-help can illuminate
the negotiation of cultural values in Russia. As an influential cultural form, it contributes
to creating narratives and symbols through which people make sense of themselves and
imagine possible lives and selves.
The article makes both empirical and theoretical contributions to the existing literature
on therapeutic culture and self-help. First, it contributes empirically by moving beyond the
anglophone cultural sphere that has dominated the scholarship on self-help (Madsen, 2014;
Nehring et al., 2016) to explore self-help in contemporary Russia. With this move, the
article contributes both to an emerging field of research on the transnational circulation of
self-help (Nehring et al., 2016), and to scholarship probing the dynamics of therapeutic
knowledges and practices in the post-Soviet context (Honey, 2012, 2014; Lerner, 2011,
2015; Lerner and Zbenovich, 2013; Matza, 2009, 2012, 2014; Mazzarino, 2013;
Salmenniemi and Adamson, 2015; Salmenniemi and Vorona, 2014; Zigon, 2011a, 2011b).
In particular, it continues developing the line of argumentation that has emphasised the
intrinsic and vibrant circulation, co-existence and interaction of global and historical dis-
courses in the post-Soviet space (see Lerner, 2011; Lerner and Zbenovich, 2013; Zigon,
2011a, 2011b).
The second empirical contribution of this article is that it addresses readers’ engage-
ment with self-help literature, an issue largely neglected in existing scholarship.
Accordingly, it will analyse how Russian self-help readers make sense of the genre, and
domesticate and negotiate transnational cultural flows.
The theoretical contribution of this article consists in attending to the neglected transna-
tional aspect of self-help and therapeutic culture (Nehring et al., 2016). We propose to exam-
ine self-help as a glocalised therapeutic assemblage to capture the process whereby a
disparate set of discursive practices, irreducible to a single logic, is assembled and inter-
weaved together in Russian self-help (see Collier and Ong, 2005; Li, 2007; Zigon, 2011a,
2011b). Glocalisation, a concept originally coined by Robertson (1995), refers to ‘the merg-
ing of global and local cultural forms as globalizing cultural forms descend upon different
Tiaynen-Qadir and Salmenniemi 383

polities, societies and cultures, setting in motion dynamics of appropriation, hybridization

and competition’ (Nehring et al., 2016: 33). Assemblage thinking is an attempt to avoid
reductionism and essentialism ‘through a concentration on the historic and contingent pro-
cesses that produce assemblages’ (Dovey, 2010: 16, cited in McFarlane, 2011: 209). In the
space of assemblage, a global form is one among a range of elements (Collier, 2006: 400).
We understand self-help books and their authors and readers as engaging in the labour of
assembling heterogeneous discursive elements and domesticating the globally circulating
features of this genre. By conceptualising self-help as a glocalised therapeutic assemblage,
we seek to underline the transnational and multidirectional constitution and movement of
self-help.1
We suggest that Russian self-help as glocalised therapeutic assemblage emerges
through a series of domestication strategies. By adopting the analytical lens of domesti-
cation, we seek to highlight ways in which global self-help articulates with a web of
culturally and historically sedimented discursive practices. Domestication can be under-
stood as a complex process of articulation in which heterogeneous elements from differ-
ent systems of meaning with diverse trajectories are sutured together and made intelligible
(Salmenniemi and Adamson, 2015). In this process, things that may initially be per-
ceived as ‘foreign’ become familiar (Alasuutari and Qadir, 2014: 14). The process of
domestication transforms the global form and contributes to its further movement and
transformation (see Stenning et al., 2012).
In this article, we flesh out the dynamics of the Russian self-help genre as a glocalized
therapeutic assemblage. We suggest that the Russian books domesticate positive think-
ing and the bullet-point narrative form by articulating them with discourses familiar from
Russian and Soviet cultural history. We have identified three domestication strategies.
First, we shall show how the bullet-point form is domesticated by articulating it with the
discourse of culturedness (kul’turnost’), which transforms the accessible and ‘to the
point’ form into a detailed and multilayered intertextual narrative. This construes the
implied reader as a ‘cultured person’, willing to engage with scientific, historical, cul-
tural and philosophical systems of knowledge. The second strategy places positive think-
ing in dialogue with discourses of suffering. The authors either posit positive thinking as
an alternative to suffering, or emphasise positive aspects of experiences of suffering
indispensable to spiritual self-transformation. The third strategy rests on the interplay
between the Russian discourse on spirituality (dukhovnost’), rooted in Orthodox spiritu-
ality, folk magic and the ‘Russian soul’, and the discourse of consciousness (soznanie),
grounded in both Soviet scientific rationalism and transnational New Age spirituality.
Both the bullet-point narrative form and positive thinking are negotiated by Russian
self-help readers in various ways. While some find positive thinking empowering, others
consider it profoundly misguided. However, what unites readers is their aversion to sim-
plified and universalistic accounts and authoritarian exhortations. In self-help, they seek
food for thought and explanatory frameworks that acknowledge the social embedded-
ness of individuals and provide more complex and subtle solutions.
The rest of the article will unfold as follows. The next sections of this article offer a
historical contextualisation of therapeutic discourse and self-help in Russia, and present
the research materials and methods. The domestication strategies of the bullet-point
384 European Journal of Cultural Studies 20(4)

template and positive thinking are then analysed in detail, while the concluding section
draws together the main empirical and theoretical arguments developed in the article.

Self in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia

Unlike in post-war Western societies, where psy-knowledges and psychotherapeutic
practices gradually gained ascendancy as the primary sources of authority in understand-
ing the self and social relations (Illouz, 2008; Rose, 1998; Hazleden, 2003, 2011; McGee,
2005), these knowledges and practices occupied a marginal position in Soviet society
(Lerner, 2011; Lerner and Zbenovich, 2013; Matza, 2009). However, the ideas of self-
transformation and work on the self were articulated in Soviet and Russian culture in a
variety of ways. Soviet society had its distinctive socialist tradition of ‘work on the self’
(rabota nad soboi), which manifested itself, for example, in advice manuals seeking to
make the Soviet masses more ‘cultured’, and in individual self-training programmes
(samovospitanie) offering guidance on becoming a more devoted communist (Kelly,
2001; Kharkhordin, 1999). Soviet advice books addressed a diverse set of themes and
target audiences, and although many of them were ‘mouthpieces’ of state ideology, some
also bore resemblance with the famous self-help author Dale Carnegie’s books by
emphasising social harmony (Kelly, 2001: 251). Psychotherapeutic and psychoanalytical
discourses, however, were largely absent in Soviet advice books (Kelly, 2001; Lerner,
2011).
In addition to Soviet practices, work on the self has also been an integral part of
Orthodox moral theology (Zigon, 2011a), as well as of the Russian tradition of ‘esoteri-
cism’ (see Hanegraaff, 1998; Honey, 2006; Rosenthal, 1996). Although the Soviet state
embraced atheism and labelled religion and spirituality as ‘vestiges of the past’, alterna-
tive healing and religious practices were also practised during the Soviet era and remained
an important dimension of Soviet everyday life and subjectivities (Honey, 2006, 2012;
Lindquist, 2006; Tiaynen, 2013).
Only in the aftermath of the demise of the Soviet Union did the therapeutic discourse,
and self-help literature as its key cultural vehicle, begin to circulate more widely in
Russia (see Kelly, 2001; Ries, 1997). Today, self-help constitutes a highly popular and
visible element of the Russian cultural landscape (Mazzarino, 2013; Salmenniemi and
Vorona, 2014; Salmenniemi, 2016). As our analysis will elucidate, Russian self-help
books draw together elements from traditional religions, New Age spiritualities,2 folk
magic and psy-knowledges. This eclectic mix is a typical feature of the self-help genre
in general (Heelas, 1996, 2008; Redden, 2002; Woodstock, 2005), as well as a distinctive
characteristic of the contemporary Russian cultural sphere (Dubin, 2004; Etkind, 2009,
cited in Lerner and Zbenovich, 2013: 848).

Research methodology
Our research strategy addresses self-help books and their readership as two significant
agents in the domestication of the self-help genre and the shaping of the therapeutic cul-
ture in Russia. Our primary material consists of 14 bestselling self-help books written by
four Russian authors and aimed at a general reading audience. These authors were
Tiaynen-Qadir and Salmenniemi 385

chosen because they are particularly popular, prolific and well known in Russia. Each
author represents a different strand of self-help. Gennadii Malakhov is one of the most
well-known figures in the field of complementary and alternative medicine, particularly
folk healing, and used to run a talk show on national television. Valerii Sinel’nikov is a
psychotherapist, homeopath and New Age practitioner (in Slavic neopaganism), whose
ideas are promoted not only through books and seminars but also through a network of
self-help clubs. Andrei Kurpatov is a famous psychologist and psychotherapist, who has
been running a number of popular psychology talk shows on national television. Finally,
Nataliia Pravdina is a feng shui consultant and therapeutic trainer drawing on New Age
and American-style prosperity self-help. What unites these authors is that their books
address the central themes of the self-help genre: love, relationships, health, wealth and
happiness. The popularity of these authors signals that something in their messages
speaks to and resonates with the lived realities of the Russian reading public. Moreover,
they are transnational therapeutic entrepreneurs, delivering seminars and talks abroad,
particularly in former socialist bloc countries but also beyond, and some of their books
have been translated into other languages. In this way, the writers contribute to shaping
the transnational therapeutic culture.
Our second set of research materials consists of one-to-one and focus group interviews
conducted with readers of therapeutic self-help literature in the city of Saratov during
2009–2010.3 In total, 30 readers (21 women and 9 men) were interviewed, ranging in age
from 20 to 70 years. Among them were students, medical doctors, teachers, psychologists,
service personnel, housewives, pensioners and entrepreneurs. Most had read the books or
they were otherwise familiar with the self-help authors addressed in this article.
We chose to focus on the domestication of the bullet-point narrative form and positive
thinking ideology, since these are identified as core features of the genre in Louisa
Woodstock’s (2005) in-depth historical study of the self-help genre. These features are
also prominent in the analysed Russian self-help materials. In our analysis, we paid
attention to ways in which these two generic features were articulated and explained in
the texts, which enabled us to define the domestication strategies mobilised to make the
books intelligible to and resonate with Russian readers. The interviews were then ana-
lysed by tracing ways in which the interviewees interpreted the bullet-point form and
positive thinking.

Domesticating the bullet-point narrative

We now move on to analyse how the ‘bullet-point’ narrative form is domesticated in the
Russian self-help texts. According to Woodstock (2005: 170), this refers to a form of repre-
sentation that seeks to communicate meanings in a condensed and accessible form. With its
‘penchant for brevity and getting to the point’ (Woodstock, 2005), it has become particularly
prominent in the genre since the 1990s, seeking to involve readers as participants, while
accommodating their divided attention among myriad media outlets and their consequent
desire for streamlined information (Woodstock, 2005). The most poignant example of this
form is the numerical representation indexing specific stages, steps or modes. This template
abounds in the Amazon self-help bestseller list, including such titles as The 5 Love
386 European Journal of Cultural Studies 20(4)

Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, The
Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom and The 48 Laws of Power.
The bullet-point form is also abundantly present in the analysed Russian self-help
books, manifesting itself, for example, in ‘21 honest answers’ (Kurpatov, 2010a), ‘twelve
steps towards oneself’ (Kurpatov, 2010b, 2010c), ‘three fatal instincts’ (Kurpatov, 2006),
and ‘seven phases of strengthening psychic and life energy’ (Malakhov, 2007). It also
manifests itself in the form of bullet-point lists and summaries of key ideas, as well as in
illustrations visualising therapeutic messages (see, for example, Pravdina, 2007, 2009;
Sinel’nikov, 2010a; Sinel’nikov and Slobotchikov, 2007). However, this bullet-point
form, when domesticated to Russian readers, often transforms into a multilayered narra-
tive drawing on a variety of Russian, Eastern and European cultural historical, philo-
sophical, scientific and spiritual discourses. For example, Kurpatov’s ‘twelve steps’
programme expands into two volumes with abundant references to professional psychol-
ogy, Russian classical literature, European philosophers, poets and writers, taking inspi-
ration from Confucianism, Sufism, Indian philosophy and Buddhism (Kurpatov, 2010b,
2010c). In another book, the idea of ‘seven phases’ of strengthening psychic and life
energy expands into a highly detailed account of Chinese philosophy, yoga breathing
techniques, and Ayurvedic and Russian folk medicine, as well as Orthodox practices
(Malakhov, 2007).
This transformation of the bullet-point form into a detailed narrative with dense inter-
textualities is a key feature of the Russian self-help genre. It emerges through articulating
the bullet-point form with the Soviet cultural and aesthetic ideology of culturedness
(kul’turnost’). Culturedness refers to a broad set of values and practices emphasising
highbrow cultural engagement and competence. Reading and familiarity with the literary
canon was a key aspect of the cultured person in the Soviet Union. Despite the boom of
popular culture and the reconfiguration of aesthetic hierarchies, the ideas and values
associated with culturedness continue to play an important role in contemporary Russia
(Schimpfossl, 2014; Zavisca, 2005: 12–48).
We interpret the domestication of the bullet-point style, drawing on the discourse of
culturedness, as serving as a strategy to negotiate the hierarchy between ‘popular’ and
‘highbrow’ culture. In addressing a ‘cultured person’ as the implied reader and articulat-
ing the bullet-point template with highbrow intertextualities, the books seek to ‘cultural-
ise’ a genre generally regarded as ‘light’ and devoid of aesthetic or intellectual value.4 In
this way, culturedness as a domestication strategy can be interpreted as an attempt to
redefine and claim value and legitimacy for the self-help genre.
These attempts to negotiate aesthetic hierarchies and domesticate the genre to the
Russian cultural context found resonance among the self-help readers interviewed in
this study. Many exemplified the ‘cultured’ reader implied in the books. In general, they
were avid readers who, in addition to various kinds of self-help literature, also read fic-
tion, history, professional psychology, philosophy and religious literature. Many had
also practised a range of therapeutic techniques and participated in psychological train-
ing and self-help groups. Although some appreciated the accessible bullet-point form, a
significant proportion of readers took a critical stand to it and sought more complex
narratives. They were particularly critical of ‘foreign books’ that gave ‘very simplified’
advice, not always applicable to the Russian environment (for a fuller analysis, see
Tiaynen-Qadir and Salmenniemi 387

Salmenniemi and Vorona, 2014). Moreover, the readers also proposed scales of quality,
evaluating the authors’ educational credentials and expertise, as well as the level of
competence and knowledge that the books expected from the readers. As Elena, a
housewife in her late 40s, explained,

I don’t take Nataliia Pravdina very seriously … But it’s easy to read her books, and I gave her
book as a present to my sister … I think that Doctor Kurpatov, and also Sinel’nikov are stronger
… At the moment, Sinel’nikov is more understandable and more appealing to me … but
Kurpatov is demanding. I guess I haven’t reached that level yet.

The interviewed readers were looking for ‘food for thought’ (pissha dlia razmyshlenii)
in self-help literature, and new ways to understand themselves and the surrounding world.
They voiced aversion to books that propagated ‘universal truths’ and gave categorical
advice, stressing instead the context-bound nature of knowledge, experience and selfhood
(see Salmenniemi and Vorona, 2014). They shunned ready-made solutions and orders on
‘how to behave’, and treated self-help books as ‘interlocutors’. Reading was experienced
as an act of ‘horizontal dialogue’. One interviewee, Sergei, summarised a common view:

I particularly appreciate the experience of engaging in conversation (beseda) with the author,
the moment of having an interlocutor (sobesednik). I feel the author is not attempting to be
some kind of guru who is trying to convey to me some truths that I have to remember. [I like it]
when the author communicates with me, maybe gives me some advice as a friendly interlocutor,
as a person who understands me.

The Russian terms for conversation and interlocutor are symbolically rich and convey
a cultural image of comfort and cosiness associated with intensive, intersubjective
engagement. One author, in our sample, also defines his books precisely as a form of
conversation (Kurpatov, 2010b: 7). This reflexive engagement with self-help can be read
as a reaction to the authoritarian and didactic approaches to knowledge characteristic of
the Soviet era (Rivkin-Fish, 2005: 93, 115), as well as reflecting a move from external to
internal authority characteristic of both the therapeutic discourse and holistic spirituali-
ties (Heelas, 1996). The interviewees did not want to be positioned as obedient and pas-
sive objects of knowledge, but rather as its active interpreters and evaluators.

Mythologies of happiness and suffering

In addition to the bullet-point format, the Russian self-help texts also domesticate the
idea of positive thinking. In contrast to American culture, where an optimistic outlook
and a belief in the power of ‘happy thoughts’ have constituted key elements of national
identity (Ehrenreich, 2009; Woodstock, 2005; McGee, 2005), Russian culture has rather
embraced hardship and poverty as sources of moral authority and symbolic recognition.
Russian-ness has been symbolically aligned with the ‘art of suffering’, in both Western
and Russian cultural historical discourses (Rivkin-Fish, 2005; Ries, 1997).
Positive thinking has been a key concept of the self-help tradition since the inception of
the genre in the 19th century (Woodstock, 2005). An emblematic text in this regard is
388 European Journal of Cultural Studies 20(4)

Norman Vincent Peale’s (1952) classic, The Power of Positive Thinking. In essence, posi-
tive thinking holds that thoughts shape reality, and is based on a belief in the power of the
rational mind, that individuals ‘can change their lives, their relationships, their jobs, and
their personalities, by thinking differently, through power of thought alone’ (Woodstock,
2005: 156). Positive thinking therefore suggests that not only all problems but also all
answers lie in the internal world of the self and that, consequently, hard times are due
mainly to poor quality of thinking and an inadequately unified self (Woodstock, 2005).
Woodstock (2005: 180) suggests that ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ thinking have merged in
self-help so that readers are encouraged to place painful negative thoughts in the past and
move forward by thinking positive thoughts about the present and the future.
Although positive thinking as a self-help technology is a newcomer to Russia, the
‘power of thought’ is not, since it was emphasised in the Russian esotericism of the 19th
and early 20th centuries (Hanegraaff, 1998; Rosenthal, 1996), as well as in the Soviet
discourse of rational consciousness as a world-transforming power. Today, the discourse
of positive thinking is widely present in the Russian self-help field (Mazzarino, 2013),
and all the authors in our sample subscribe to it. They declare, over and over again, that
‘the person creates his own world with his very thoughts’ (Malakhov, 2007: 175), that
‘the world emerges in the way we look at it’ (Kurpatov, 2010b: 14), and that ‘we create
the world with our thoughts, feelings, emotions’ (Sinel’nikov, 2010b: 17) and ‘words’
(Sinel’nikov, 2007: 9).
A key strategy through which Russian therapeutic texts domesticate positive thinking
is by juxtaposing it vis-à-vis the Russian cultural historical mythologies of suffering and
the associated distinctive speech genre of litanies. Litanies are, as Nancy Ries (1997: 84)
explains, passages in conversation in which a speaker enunciates a series of complaints,
grievances and worries, as well as lamenting the hopelessness of the situation. They
perform an important social function by forging a sense of belonging to a ‘moral com-
munity of shared suffering’ (Ries, 1997: 88). They often convey a certain sense of pow-
erlessness in the face of social forces, as well as the position of victim. They can also be
seen as a form of ritualised entreaty, an almost prayer-like recitation of suffering and
loss, a combination of pessimistic despair and the possibility of relief (Ries, 1997: 112).
The Russian self-help authors acknowledge this specific Russian speech genre. As a
form of destructive thinking, they regard litanies as harmful, and offer positive thinking
as an alternative to this perennial tradition of sacralised suffering. As a result, the books
explicitly discourage discussion of ‘unpleasant’ and ‘negative’ issues. They illustrate the
power of positive thinking by applying it to commonplace, everyday situations that are
likely to be recognisable and familiar to most Russians. This simultaneously serves as a
way to domesticate the idea to Russia. Such situations include, for example, how to deal
with corrupt officials, avoid economic crises, live in a communal flat, or manage busi-
ness in a highly unstable and unregulated environment. One author advises her readers to
‘refuse all attempts to draw yourself into a discussion about inflation, expensive prices,
corruption of the powers-that-be, the breaking and entering of homes, and so on’
(Pravdina, 2007: 134), all prevalent topics in everyday conversation in Russia, to avoid
the negative consequences that such laments would entail. Another author delivers a
cautionary tale on the dangers of Russian litanies by illustrating the power of positive
thinking. He recounts a conversation he had with his friends in the sauna. His friends
Tiaynen-Qadir and Salmenniemi 389

were criticising ‘laws, the government and tax inspectors’, so the author asked his friends
(and the reader), ‘Have you ever tried to love our government?’:

What is the use of these futile discussions and critique? You just spoil your mood, and the mood
of others … In the government bodies, there are also working people … Each has a soul,
irrespective of whether he is a customs official or tax inspector. And the soul of this person
reacts sensitively to your thoughts and emotions. If your attitude is hostile, then you will receive
only negative feedback in the form of fines or hints of bribery. But if your attitude is kind, then
his attitude towards you will be similar. (Sinel’nikov, 2010b: 77)

The author unleashes evidence of the effectiveness of this method by relating that, a
week later, one of his friends reported having applied this method successfully and
avoided a tax inspection.
In yet another example, the power of positive thinking is illustrated by grounding it in
the terrain of women’s juggling of the domestic and work responsibilities characteristic
of the ‘working mother’ gender contract familiar to the majority of Russian women
(Rotkirch and Temkina, 2007). The author introduces the reader to the life of Svetlana,
who ‘always went to work expecting troubles, and upon her return to home, tired and
upset, had to take care of her daughter and “please” her husband’. Rather than lamenting
the situation, the books recommend positive thoughts as a way to bring about change.
Change is portrayed as depending merely on individual thoughts:

At some point, Svetlana’s patience was over, and she, having attended my seminar on self-
transformation, understood that she could change her life. Earlier she used to put the interests
of her close ones and her work above her own personhood (lichnost’). Having realised her
values, she started practising the morning session [of positive affirmation] of joy … Soon she
noticed that her demanding boss suddenly became more compromising and started praising her
more … ‘Now I will start telling myself that I am a princess, and the army of servants is taking
care of me. What if it helps to attract my husband and my daughter to home duties?’ It will help,
Svetlana, of course it will, as we transfer our perception of ourselves into the world, and it
attracts a corresponding answer. (Pravdina, 2010: 26–27)

In some of the books, as in the one cited above, positive thinking is evoked as a source
of and a remedy to both individual and societal problems, which are seen as stemming
from individual psychopathologies rather than structural relationships of power. This
therapeutic individualism is a common feature of globally circulating self-help (Rimke,
2000; Woodstock, 2005); yet, some of the books in our sample also distance themselves
from this version of positive thinking and instead emphasise a positive attitude as a way
to achieve well-being. Negative experiences and suffering are not denied as such, nor
seen as a cause of poverty and disadvantage, but as potentially important channels of
learning and self-transformation.

The spiritual self

Positive thinking is also domesticated in the analysed self-help books through a particu-
lar interplay of spirituality (dukhovnost’), foregrounding religious and mystical aspects
of selfhood and consciousness (soznanie), and emphasising the rational mind
390 European Journal of Cultural Studies 20(4)

and self-mastery. Although the fusion of scientific and religious/spiritual discourses is

characteristic of positive thinking in general (Woodstock, 2005), we shall unpack below
how this fusion emerges in a distinct way in Russian self-help.
As explained in the previous section, the positive thinking ideology emphasises self-mas-
tery through the rational management of thoughts (Rimke, 2000; Woodstock, 2005). Perhaps
counterintuitively, this idea also finds resonance with the Soviet discourse of consciousness
(soznanie). The Russian revolution envisaged a thoroughly politicised subject marked by
self-mastery and willpower in the service of communism (Hellbeck, 2006). This idea was
rooted in the scientific rationalism characteristic of the Soviet project of modernity. Positive
thinking is domesticated in the self-help books by articulating it together with this discourse
of consciousness and appealing to the work on the self, familiar from the Soviet era:

Of course, everything begins with the work on the consciousness (soznanie). One should
understand and clarify … who you are; what your role in the process of creation is; what guides
you; the purpose of your life. Only when these questions are answered can one make a conscious
choice and start implementing it in real life and achieve something. (Malakhov, 2007: 141)

While the discourse of consciousness was mobilised in the Soviet Union to call peo-
ple to work for the benefit of the Soviet state, in contemporary self-help, it is evoked
primarily for the purpose of individual happiness and well-being. Work on the conscious-
ness is seen as a way to ‘find a highly-paid job, be healthy, create a happy family, become
a rich man, buy a house’ (Sinel’nikov, 2010b: 27) and ‘build up your health and wealth,
enjoy your successes in life’ (Malakhov, 2007: 148).
The discourse of consciousness was not only central to the Soviet project of moder-
nity but has also been influential in the esoteric tradition both in the West and in Russia
(Hanegraaff, 1998; Rosenthal, 1996). For example, in developing a ‘new model of
human consciousness’, some of the books in our sample draw on the famous New Age
writer Carlos Castaneda’s notion of ‘expanding consciousness’ (see, for example,
Sinel’nikov, 2010a: 16).
However, this power of consciousness is also destabilised in the analysed self-help
texts by drawing on the notion of spirituality (dukhovnost’). Dukhovnost’ is an histori-
cally powerful cultural discourse that embraces elements of Orthodox spirituality as well
as the ideas of self-enlightenment and self-perfection of 19th-century Russian classical
literature. During Soviet times, spirituality was deprived of its religious connotation, and
became closely linked to culturedness through an emphasis on artistic creativity, music
and knowledge of classical literature (Halstead, 1994). After the Soviet collapse, duk-
hovnost’ became a broad and inclusive cultural category to which both religious and
non-religious Russians could become deeply committed (Willems, 2006: 294). The ana-
lysed self-help books mobilise the discourse of spirituality as a strategy to domesticate
positive thinking. They do this by evoking three key aspects of this discourse: the con-
cept of the ‘Russian soul’ (dusha), Orthodox Christian concepts and practices, and the
magical rationale expressed through folk magic and healing.
The notion of soul is an important discourse of selfhood in Russian cultural history and
the most common approach to conceiving of the self in spiritual terms (Lerner, 2011;
Pesmen, 2000). In the analysed books, soul is often seen as something deeply personal and
Tiaynen-Qadir and Salmenniemi 391

intimate, surpassing the limitations of the rational mind. As one author in our sample
explains (Kurpatov, 2010c: 128), soul draws positive thinking into the domain of the ‘unspo-
ken and inexpressible’, ‘something that is happening within you, something that rescued
you in the most terrible moments’. This author also mobilises the notion of soul to illustrate
the limits of rational reasoning: ‘Of course we can be quite understandable in simple and
plain things, but to understand our souls? Sometimes even we ourselves are unable to under-
stand our soul, and what can we expect from others?’ (Kurpatov, 2010a: 221).
The importance of experiential spiritual knowledge is emphasised in much of the self-
help literature (Rimke, 2000; Woodstock, 2005) and has also been historically significant
in New Age and Orthodox spirituality, both in Russia and transnationally (Hann and
Goltz, 2010; Heelas, 1996; Rosenthal, 1996: 10). Many of the books in our sample make
explicit references to Orthodox faith, perhaps due to the culturally pivotal position of
Orthodoxy in Russian culture. Key Orthodox Christian ideas and practices, such as going
to church, undertaking pilgrimages, visiting sacred places, kissing icons, receiving
Eucharist, fasting and praying, are recommended as therapeutic practices for maintain-
ing positive dispositions and neutralising negative effects (see, for example, Malakhov,
2007). However, in parallel with Orthodox Christian practices, the books also make
much use of Russian folk magic, especially a belief in magical harm (Lindquist, 2006;
Tiaynen, 2013). For example, some of the authors refer to porcha, which is a well-known
term of affliction in Russian folk magic. They also mention sglaz, depicting a misfortune
or disease inflicted on a person through the act of looking, an ‘evil eye’. The texts mobi-
lise these ideas as examples of ‘negative thinking’ that are believed to result in a malaise
or serious disease, and suggest instead ‘positive magic’ in the form of happy thoughts.
They also refer to healers and healing practices familiar from the Soviet period, such as
Georgii Sytin, who developed herbal formulas for healing (Pravdina, 2006: 30), and
Porfiry Ivanov, a mystic and practitioner of alternative medicine (Malakhov, 2007: 122),
as well as articulate these with global therapeutic and New Age practices such as yoga
(see, for example, Kurpatov, 2010b: 171; Malakhov, 2007: 135; Malakhov, 2006).
This domestication of positive thinking through dukhovnost’ contributes to subvert-
ing the transformative power of the rational mind and emphasises instead mystery and
magic beyond human comprehension. In doing so, the limits of thought and human
agency in shaping social reality are acknowledged. Life is seen to involve an element of
uncertainty and mysticism, which one has to accept and learn to value.
The interviews with self-help readers also dealt with positive thinking. Some readers,
particularly women, embraced positive thinking, which they felt offered them a sense of
empowerment (see also Salmenniemi and Vorona, 2014):

Sofiia: Overall I like that there’s this message of something positive, success, and fortune [in
self-help books]. … Most importantly, these books give a sense that one should never give up
and that there are no deadlock situations … Reading these books is enough to understand that
nothing is lost, and everything can be fixed.

Positive thinking was also understood more broadly than merely programming reality
with one’s thoughts. For many, it served as a way of dealing with socio-economic precar-
ity and difficult life situations, such as unemployment and illness. For example, Natasha,
392 European Journal of Cultural Studies 20(4)

an unemployed woman in her forties, had begun to recite positive affirmations as a way
of dealing with health problems. She recounted,

I began reading this type of [self-help] literature because it made me think, and because you
have to build your behaviour sensibly in order not to be ill. I have been ill for a long time and
haven’t been able get better in any way. But Sinel’nikov writes in his book that illness is, in
general, a consequence of our negative thoughts. Think good, wish good, behave in a right way,
do not offend anyone, do not hate, and your life will be harmonious and you will be well. This
morning I woke up and said to myself: ‘I’m healthy, I’m wealthy’ and I think I’m feeling better
already [laughs].

However, many readers voiced scepticism about the power of happy thoughts to
transform individual life situations, let alone society more broadly. Simplistic accounts
of positive thinking were seen as overlooking the socio-structural embeddedness of
social actors, and its impact on one’s actions and choices. Denis summarised a common
view among the interviewees:

There are those books that say ‘you can have it all, if you just pull yourself together, and
everything will be fine’. In my opinion, there is no sense in this … ‘How to earn your first
million?’ … For instance, a housewife – how could she earn her first million? I’m not convinced
that she can do it just by changing her thoughts, her worldview.

The interviews also disclosed great diversity in understandings of what constitutes

self-help. This category proved to be flexible, accommodating, in addition to conven-
tional self-help books, everything from Jungian psychology (see Honey, 2014), esoteric
literature and Soviet advice books, to novels dealing with existential questions and reli-
gious texts. Thus, both the analysed books and the interviews foreground the complexity
and diversity of self-help as a cultural practice.

Conclusion
In this article, we have sought to shed light on the transnationalisation of self-help by
analysing how the globally circulating self-help discourse has been domesticated in
Russia. We have suggested the concept of glocalized therapeutic assemblage to capture
the process by which multiple global and historical discourses are assembled and inter-
twined in Russian self-help. These discourses include Soviet discourses of culturedness
and consciousness, New Age discourses, Russian/Soviet discourses of suffering and
spirituality, and globally circulating positive thinking ideas and bullet-point narratives.
This assemblage makes the genre seem simultaneously familiar and novel.
We have also shown how the self-help genre is transformed in the process of domes-
tication. By domesticating the bullet-point form, the analysed self-help books transform
the key feature of the genre, its accessible and concise form, into a multilayered intertex-
tual narrative. Furthermore, by domesticating the idea of positive thinking, the books
depart from the idea of rational self-mastery and arrive at the idea that neither selfhood
nor social reality are completely rational or accessible to the mind, but have elements of
uncertainty and mysticism. While positive thoughts are seen as the result of one’s
Tiaynen-Qadir and Salmenniemi 393

conscious self-improvement efforts, the authors also challenge the individual’s capacity
to transform reality solely through the power of the rational mind. The interviews reveal
that these strategies of domestication resonate with readers’ expectations. Readers appre-
ciate the element of culturedness, and shun decontextualised and categorical advice.
Many are critical of the sole power of thought to transform reality, and instead emphasise
the social embeddedness of individuals. However, positive thinking appears, for some, to
be an empowering idea and a way of coming to terms with difficult life situations.
We believe that the concept of glocalized therapeutic assemblage offers a productive
analytical lens for exploring therapeutic knowledge and practices and their transnational
movement, interaction and entanglement in diverse contexts. The concept foregrounds
the labour of pulling and sustaining together diverse agents, discourses, practices and
spaces (see Li, 2007) and highlights the situated and variegated forms of self-help and
therapeutic culture. In so doing, it allows us to deconstruct and historicise generic narra-
tives of therapeutic culture and draw our attention to the complex processes of assem-
bling, reassembling and domestication of therapeutic elements.

Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on this
article.

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/
or publication of this article: This work was conducted as part of the project ‘Puzzle of the Psyche:
Therapeutic knowledge and selfhood in a comparative perspective’ funded by Kone Foundation
(grant number 26002848), as well the project ‘Tracking the Therapeutic: Ethnographies of
Wellbeing, Politics and Inequality’ (grant number 289004) funded by the Academy of Finland.

Notes
1. This multidirectional and transnational character of self-help manifests itself, for example,
in the ways in which Russian actors have contributed to the creation of therapeutic ideas and
practices. To give just one example, Helena Petrowna Blavatsky (1831–1891), a key figure in
the development of theosophy, has had a decisive influence on the development of New Age
movements (Hanegraaff, 1998: 448; Rosenthal, 1996: 9).
2. Although New Age spiritualities are difficult to define unequivocally, characteristic of them is
the belief that human beings are essentially gods in themselves and that the individual has to
take responsibility for his or her life and for creating his or her own reality, and have a deep-
seated conviction of the power of positive thinking, personal growth and development of a
new, higher consciousness (York, 2001).
3. Saratov, in Western Russia, has about 837,000 inhabitants. The interviews were conducted in
co-operation with scholars of the Saratov State Technical University. We are deeply indebted
to Mariya Vorona, Galina Karpova and Olga Bendina for their invaluable help in carrying out
the interviews.
4. A number of self-help readers in this study also reflected on this issue by recounting how the
genre is often perceived as a form of pulp fiction, as light and entertaining reading. One of
the authors of this article was also advised by Russian friends to hide the covers of self-help
books when reading them in public in order not to disclose this dubious reading to others.
394 European Journal of Cultural Studies 20(4)

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Biographical notes
Tatiana Tiaynen-Qadir is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Turku, Finland. Her
background is in transnational anthropology, multi-sited ethnography, family and gender studies. In
her earlier research, she has analysed transnational family-making and grandmothering between
Russia and Finland. Her current interests lie in research on therapy culture and vernacular religion.
Suvi Salmenniemi is an associate professor of Sociology at the University of Turku, Finland. She
specialises in political sociology, cultural studies and feminist research. Her research has focused
on the classed and gendered dimensions of political activism, therapeutic practices and well-being
as well as on neoliberalism and feminist politics. Her ongoing ethnographic project explores
engagement with therapeutic technologies.