Determinants of Self-optimization in Therapeutic Culture Through the Example of the Discourse of the Therapeutic Community of Mindfulness

In the West, since the development of neoliberal capitalism, therapeutic culture has been actively permeating beyond the boundaries of professional psychology, exerting a comprehensive influence on the sociocultural dynamics of society. A new neoliberal identity is being formed, characterized by an autonomous, rational, responsible, and enterprising individual aimed at maximizing personal potential. Thus, therapeutic culture acts as a driver of economic growth. On the other hand, as Western cultural models are imported into Russia through media freedom and trade, both professional and popular psychology begin to penetrate public discourse in various forms in a country with a cultural context different from the West, such as Russia: from counseling and books to specific practices. Mindfulness practices are one of the directions of therapeutic culture and represent a secularized reworking of Buddhist meditative practices designed to improve the physical, mental, and bodily "Self". Researchers of therapeutic culture have conceptualized this process as self-optimization. Due to its universality and accessibility, mindfulness practices become the leading form of self-optimization within therapeutic culture in Russia. At the same time, as noted, the historical, cultural, and economic conditions of the development of Russian society contrast with those of neoliberal capitalist countries like the USA. In this analysis, it is necessary to consider the experience of Russia's post-socialist transition and the nationally oriented economic policy that has developed to date. We find an apparent theoretical contradiction: on the one hand, therapeutic culture is based on neoliberal capitalism; on the other, it paradoxically spreads in national contexts where there may be no demand for neoliberal identity. Therapeutic communities play a key role in the internalization of therapeutic culture due to their discursive type of participation and expert knowledge. The discourse conducted within such communities is the basis for accepting self-optimization as part of an individual's identity. As a result of developing a new approach to thematic modeling of social media posts to create questions and scales, a self-optimization scale was constructed based on posts from the mindfulness therapeutic community, assessing the presence of mindfulness practices in the community member's life. In a mass survey of community members over 18 years old living and working in Russia, 435 respondents were surveyed. Thanks to this, it was established that in the Russian context, there is no connection between neoliberal sociocultural identity schemes, gender, age, and self-optimization. However, most of the assumed determinants concerning the level of material well-being, education, the size of the organization at the place of work, the number of working hours, and the number of subordinates at the workplace proved to be significant. Based on the results of the study, it can be argued that the transmission of therapeutic culture outside of neoliberal capitalism leads to a different type of self-optimization, one that does not form a neoliberal identity, deepening our understanding of the spread and reception of therapeutic culture.