Construction of the neo-subject in self-help books

This study examines how neoliberal subjectivity is constructed through discourses embedded in popular self-help books. The primary aim of the research is to reveal how individuals are subjectivized within self-help literature and how these processes serve as cultural vehicles of neoliberal ideology. As a method, document analysis was employed within the framework of a qualitative research approach. Critical discourse analysis was adopted as the analytical basis, with Norman Fairclough's three-dimensional model-centered on the relationship between discourse and power-serving as the core framework. The analysis was further enriched with insights from Ruth Wodak's discourse-historical approach and Teun A. van Dijk's socio-cognitive model. Within this scope, twelve popular self-help books translated into Turkish, with high circulation and wide readership, were selected and systematically examined through discursive repetitions, normative directives, and linguistic codes. The research findings demonstrate the prominence of eight thematic discursive domains: Individual Responsibility, Entrepreneurial Self and Performance, Self-Discipline, Positivity and Happiness, Competition and Winning, Inner Transformation and Purification, Strategic Communication and Persuasion, and Spiritual-Therapeutic Discourses. Each discourse transforms the individual into a project-subject who renders structural inequalities invisible, reduces social problems to personal inadequacies, and feels compelled to engage in perpetual self-improvement. The study provides a critical perspective on the cultural construction of neoliberal subjectivity by uncovering the power relations operating behind the ideals promoted in self-help literature. In this regard, self-help books appear not as mere instruments of individual guidance but as discursive apparatuses and political tools that reproduce the neoliberal order. The study concludes by emphasizing the necessity of reading these texts through a critical lens and suggests the development of alternative discourses in education, media, and cultural production that can foster collective solidarity rather than individualism.