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I coachingland - på spaning efter den inre potentialen

På svenska

Author

Summary, in English

This article examines the expansive commercialization of various neospiritual and pseudoscientific practices currently mobilized in late modern Swedish pursuits of identity, meaning, and health. The focus is on the emergence and marketing of new entrepreneurs who have established themselves as “coaches” promoting personal development, and how they organize their own systems of education and certification. Publicly financed institutions at local, regional, and federal levels increasingly purchase such services for the benefit of their clients and personnel. The recent Swedish surge in unemployment, for instance, will be met by huge public investments in personal “coaching” for the unemployed. The article mainly focus on how coaching practices are introduced and applied in Swedish society, how they cater to individual pursuits of meaning, and how they contribute to socially acceptable expressions of discontent. Finally, a discussion is rised about which kinds of therapeutic messages and understandings are emancipatory for individual clients, and which merely serve to defuse social discontent.

Publishing year

2010

Language

English

Pages

1-16

Publication/Series

Chaos. Skandinavisk tidsskrift for religionhistoriske studier

Volume

53

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Forlaget Chaos

Topic

  • History of Religions

Keywords

  • New spirituality
  • inner potential
  • coaching
  • therapy
  • commodification of new ritual practices

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0108-4453