The Creative Self: Beyond Individualism

"Be the best you can be!" Practically from the moment we are born, we are taught to optimize our lives-to devote ourselves to increasing our productivity and efficiency, which, we are told, will make us happier and more successful. The imperative of constant self-improvement, however, drains us dry even as it promises to build us up.



The Creative Self delves into the hegemony of neoliberal self-optimization and turns to psychoanalysis in search of an alternative. In paired chapters, Mari Rut...