Abstract

Never like today concerns about masculinities and the implications of being-a-man had been so present in diverse public life scenarios. We witness the multiplication and propagation of social agendas, programs and pedagogies around masculinity. Psychological practices and discourses, as well as their means for cultural propagation, have an important presence in current understandings of masculinity and articulate a language for its intervention. In this text we explore this scenario through the notions of psychologization and therapeutic culture. We trace certain inflections in the development of masculinity as an object in the field of psychological dispositives for knowledge production and individual management. We focus our analysis on two fields: a) the development of the dominant or canonical psychological science; and b) the expansion and popularization of psi knowledge in self-help culture.