The spiritual code of self-help: the negative happiness

Abstract

The following article is a critical analysis of the contemporary self-help literature centered upon reaching happiness. I analyze the self-help literature of what I have called the negative route to happiness. Happiness here is identified with lack of inner troubles, as tranquility. This route is opposed to the positive one, that I consider the primary moral language on happiness, theorized by positive psychology. Contrariwise, the negative route is a secondary moral language, and it is related to the self-spiritualities. I follow the work of Norbert Elias, and his analysis of the different codes of behavior. I analyze the legitimations or justifications of the mandates. I study the influences of spiritual self-help, such as positive psychology, neobudism and neuroscience. I also analyze the directions about emotional self-control and style of thinking, and its inner tensions. This self-help produces a motley and contradictory notion of the self, and the recommendations directed to reach happiness in its negative sense.