‘Standing up to the beast’: contradictory notions of control, un/certainty and risk in the endometriosis self-help literature

There have been several studies exploring the role public institutions, especially the media, play in the dissemination of information about health risks. To date, scholars have neglected the role that health self-help literature plays in risk communication. In this article, I examine how risks are constructed in self-help literature written for women with the chronic gynaecological condition endometriosis. In addition to informing readers about the risk factors associated with the disease, self-help authors suggest women can access an 'inner power' to avoid risks with a view to overcoming the disease. In this sense, self-help authors construct the self as both ontologically separate from and superior to the body and as capable of mastering the accidental, uncontrollable and unpredictable event of illness. Several problems with this approach are examined and it is argued that self-help books are replete with contradictory notions of certainty, uncertainty, control and risk. Endometriosis is constructed as capable of being prevented for three principal reasons: it is consistent with the neoliberal philosophy of health, the health promotion enterprise and the philosophy of the self-help movement itself, which constructs an autonomous self capable of overcoming any obstacle, including illness. I conclude that neoliberalism and self-help literature have a symbiotic relationship. Indeed, health self-help literature is the perfect tool of neo-liberalism. These findings have implications for sociological analyses of risk and health promotion, demonstrating the central role that health self-help literature plays in mediating risks and encouraging the neoliberal health promotion enterprise.