It’s not all about you! How self-help made us into miserable egotists
From manifestation to Emily Ratajkowski’s divorce ring, our obsession with self-help is materialism dressed up as philosophy, writes Phoebe Arslanagic-Little
An American writer called Tyler Austin Harper has coined the term ‘therapeutic libertarianism’ and won my eternal gratitude for naming this infuriating and inescapable phenomenon. What is therapeutic libertarianism? An unholy mix of self-help and business school babble, underpinning the central conceit that your growth and self-actualisation is the meaning of life.
Therapeutic libertarianism means turning your gaze inward (what could be more interesting than yourself!) to become a selfhood entrepreneur and light candles at the altar of id-devotion. Therapeutic libertarianism is a meme that says spending half your monthly pay on skincare is ‘self-care’ and a ‘big mood’. It’s a therapist serenely urging her followers to say “I can’t hold appropriate space for you right now” when a friend is venting about a bad day. It’s the hit self-help book Manifest: 7 Steps to Living Your Best Life, which tells readers you can “draw in anything that you desire and become the author of your own story”, all backed up by ‘neuroscience’.
While I’m in favour of setting personal goals and having self-esteem, I think the intense introspection of therapeutic libertarianism is likelier to leave you anxious than happy, perhaps while also making you a worse person. Going through a bad break up a few years ago, someone I know had a close friend decide to take some space from her because she was “being too sad”. Unsurprisingly, the friendship has not recovered.
Therapeutic libertarianism also goes hand in hand with materialism. “By investing in their appearance, women show that they value and care for themselves,” proclaims the website of one Californian cosmetic surgery clinic. I suppose a straightforward way to ‘manifest’ better breasts is simply to buy them. This is an extreme example, but the language of therapeutic libertarianism is everywhere in adverts. Eye shadow that facilitates the expression of your uniqueness. Lipstick that helps you to become yourself.
Similarly, supermodel Emily Ratajowski recently revealed that she had redesigned her engagement ring into two ‘divorce rings’. “The rings represent my own personal evolution… a reminder that I can make myself happy in ways I never imagined,” she explained. And indeed there are plenty of companies now marketing ‘divorce rings’ in case you feel buying more diamonds is an empowering and authentic way to mark the end of your marriage. This is consumerism wrapped up in a dishonest tissue paper of faux philosophy. No doubt it is of tremendous use to businesses, but I would prefer we admit that we want diamonds because of how they sparkle, not because they are the sensible way to mark a new era of personal growth.
The ego-power of therapeutic libertarianism can also be found in considerably more unsavoury places. Consider these two quotes: “Reality is self-constructed. In my world, I am in absolute control every second” and “Do the impossible and you’ll never doubt yourself again”. They could easily have been taken from an LA wellness influencer’s Instagram. But actually, they’re from Andrew Tate, the misogynistic Tiktok star who is currently under arrest for human trafficking in Romania.
How do we resist therapeutic libertarianism and its seductive exhortation to focus on ourselves? I think part of the answer is to look outward. To realise that doing something nice for somebody else is going to bring you more happiness than an expensive haircut.
Taking ourselves a bit less seriously might help too. In the words of the London-based therapist Seerut K Chawla, “Speaking like an HR memo is not self-awareness”. Chawla’s Instagram feels decidedly anti-therapeutic libertarianism. She wants us to understand that expecting ‘validation’ from everyone all the time is damaging, that adult responsibility is good and that if everyone you meet is an arsehole, you might be the problem. Chawla is blunt and refreshing and her courses have waiting lists. Her popularity gives me hope. The fight back starts with us.