Tedcore: the self-help books that have changed the way we live, speak and think

Tedcore is a sub-genre of self-help books that uses feel-good philosophy to turn our anxieties into our identity. It combines the comforting vocabulary of modern therapy with grand pseudoscientific theories on human behaviour.

Books such as Atlas of the Heart, Atomic Habits, The Body Keeps The Score, Attached, and Mating in Captivity market feel-good versions of philosophy that don't challenge our conceptions but validate our feelings. Many of these authors have given Ted talks and ensures everyone leaves feeling smarter and more special.

Tedcore is a product that falls under “self-care” and “affirms” our identity.

It operates through a system of wellness: processing your trauma is vital. Yet it ignores everything that actually produces anxiety in our society, such as unstable economies, war, mass migration, climate change, and tearing social fabric and families.

 All these theories of an abnormal self are indebted to Freudian psychoanalysis, yet it is rarely mentioned or only in passing.