Self-Help in Crisis

Abstract

Paul McKenna is a popular British self-help entrepreneur. Since the early 1990s, he has published self-help books on a wide range of topics, from weight loss in I Can Make You Thin (McKenna, 2009) to happiness in I Can Make You Happy (McKenna, 2011) and enhanced intelligence in I Can Make You Smarter (McKenna, 2012). Alongside his books, McKenna has gained public attention as a hypnotist and personal development expert. He promotes therapies to cope with trauma (Moore, 2013) or to achieve greater success through mental reprogramming (McKenna, 2014), and newspapers write of his successful work with celebrities (Lampert, 2008). As with many self-help entrepreneurs, his success seems to rest on a mixture of claims to scientific expertise, stories of past success and high visibility across a wide range of media platforms. His personal website, for instance, highlights his doctorate before pointing out that ‘Paul McKenna is the UK’s most successful non-fiction author’ and listing a succession of bestsellers (McKenna, 2013). This is followed by a set of testimonials by former patients, who attest that McKenna’s advice enabled them to lose weight and improve their lives dramatically. Likewise, he promotes his work through Twitter and Facebook, and Apple’s online shop iTunes sells various apps allowing users to track their success applying McKenna’s self-help techniques. Over the years, he has also been the host of various TV series, and channels on video platforms such as YouTube and Hulu allow viewers to watch him in action anytime.