Upheaval and reinvention in celebrity interviews: Emotional reflexivity and the therapeutic self in late modernity

Abstract

The disruptions of life in late modernity render self-identity fragile. Consequently, individuals must reflexively manage their emotions and periodically reinvent themselves to maintain a coherent narrative of the self. The rise of psychology as a discursive regime across the 20th century, and its intersections with a plethora of wellness industries, has furnished a new language of selfhood and greater public attention to emotions and personal narratives of suffering. Celebrities, who engage in public identity work to ensure their continued relatability, increasingly provide models for navigating emotional trials. In this article we explore representations of selfhood and identity work in celebrity interviews. We focus on media veterans Nigella Lawson and Ruby Wax, both of whom are skilled in re-storying the self after personal crises. We argue that interpretive capital as a peculiarly late modern resource confers emotional advantages and life chances on individuals as they navigate upheavals, uncertainties, and intimate dilemmas.

Keywords

celebrity emotional reflexivity identity work late modernity therapeutic discourse

Introduction: Upheaval, late modernity, and the celebrity interview

It has been said that we inhabit an ‘interview society’ in late Western modernity (Silverman, 1997). Since the Second World War, the interview has become a pervasive feature of contemporary society – in political opinion polling, consumer preferences, social science research and oral history, clinical practice, and the mass media, most notably through the television ‘talk show’ and the celebrity interview (Gubrium and Holstein, 2001: 9). Reflecting on these developments, Gubrium and Holstein (2001: 8–9) claim that ‘the interview is becoming the experiential conduit par excellence of the electronic age’. In this article, we explore representations of selfhood and identity work, in the context of emotional upheavals, in the lives of two celebrities – Nigella Lawson and Ruby Wax. For Lawson, the sensory pleasures of cooking and eating provide a means of dealing with emotional trials by ‘forcing’ one ‘into the moment’, while Wax advocates mindfulness-based cognitive therapy to build our ‘ability to pay attention’ and calm our inner critic. These two celebrities, now in their 60s, were chosen for analysis because each has lived in the public eye for decades and each is well recognised as an exemplar of emotional upheaval and the overcoming of obstacles – Lawson, through her loss of significant others and domestic abuse, and Wax, through her breakdown and diagnosis of clinical depression. Lawson’s ‘work’ of self-care is subtle, compared with Wax’s explicit advocacy of mindfulness and ‘new’ forms of community, demonstrating how each utilises wellbeing discourses in very different, albeit relatable ways.

Since the late 20th century, ‘a relentless flow of media events’ has centred on people’s private trials and tribulations, signifying ‘a newfound fascination with the interior life’ (Plummer, 2003: 7). As the popularisation of psychology, along with other developments (discussed below), called greater attention to the self, transforming the ‘mental and emotional apparatus’ of individuals (Illouz, 2008: 156), it also reshaped the discursive practices – conversational possibilities – of the public sphere (Wright, 2008). Overwhelmingly, these new forms of public speech centre on emotions and psychic pain. And, most often, these experiences are portrayed through images of ‘triumphant suffering’ (Illouz, 2008: 152), encapsulating the inherently healing effects of telling one’s story. Witness the growing corpus of ‘coming out’ stories (Quinn, 2012) the now commonplace disclosures of depression by prominent Australian footballers (Ralph, 2012); and perhaps the most famous of all celebrity interviews: Martin Bashir’s ‘tell-all’ interview with Diana, Princess of Wales (Panorama, BBC, 1995).

Colloquially, we talk about the need to ‘de-stress’, to ‘work through issues’, of being ‘challenged’ or ‘triggered’ by certain experiences. These linguistic habits are themselves expressions of the new ‘emotional style’ associated with late modernity. Drawing on the work of Langer (1976), Illouz (2008: 14) argues that: ‘[a]n emotional style is established when a new “interpersonal imagination” is formulated, that is a new way of thinking about the relationship of self to others, imagining its potentialities and implementing them in practice’. She also explains that ‘modern imaginings are especially likely to be formulated at sites where expert knowledge systems, media technologies and emotions intersect’ (Illouz, 2008: 15). The celebrity interview is therefore a crucial site for the cultural analysis of these imaginings.

In the first section of this article, we present key sociological ideas that explain the character of selfhood and emotionality in late modernity. Secondly, we examine the rise of therapeutic discourse, including the therapeutic narrative of self, and describe how psychology, specifically the ‘therapeutic outlook’ (Illouz, 2008: 6), has been institutionalised in diverse social arenas. Thirdly, we apply these sociological ideas to an analysis of Nigella Lawson’s and Ruby Wax’s ‘experiential’ accounts, illuminating their ‘modern imaginings’ of self and other and their emotional practices. Finally, we ponder the rise of interpretive capital as a peculiarly late modern resource and argue that it confers emotional advantages and life chances on individuals as they navigate upheavals, uncertainties, and intimate dilemmas.

Emotional reflexivity and late modernity

The emotional atmosphere of late-modern societies is permeated by risk and uncertainty (Patulny and Olsen, 2019). For Patulny and Olsen (2019) late modernity, as distinct from previous eras, is characterised by an emotional regime comprised of more ‘complex, individualized, mediated, reflexively managed and commodified emotions’ which can be linked to transformative processes at the macro level. Individualisation, alongside rapid social and technological change and increasing rationalisation, creates an emotional atmosphere where life feels like a ‘risky venture’, generating emotions associated with impending disaster (González, 2017: 37). In post-industrial, consumer societies the privatisation of services and the fragmentation of social institutions uproots individuals from traditional structures that once provided stability and coherence (Bauman, 2001; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002; Giddens, 1992). In an era arguably characterised by precarity and short-termism, once lifelong commitments such as marriage or vocation become ‘until further notice’ (Bauman, 1998, 2001; Giddens, 1992; Sennett, 1998). With the influence of traditional authorities and certainties waning, biographies become more open, a matter of personal choice and an ongoing task for the individual to manage reflexively (Beck, 1992; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995). This freedom is both an opportunity and an imposition, as Elliott (2007: 155) puts it, both ‘bane and chance for the self’. In navigating various options and making decisions about how to live, Archer (2003) conceives of selves as increasingly required to carry on an ‘internal conversation’ to make sense of themselves in relation to their social context. With a plethora of possible options, reflexivity may be dominated by feelings of ambivalence (Archer, 2012).

In Giddens’ (1991) formulation, maintaining a coherent self-narrative amidst frequent upheavals becomes an ongoing reflexive project of the self. A person’s biography must be open to constant revision in order to respond to shifting circumstances. Sennett (1998: 30), focusing on insecure work and fragmented careers, is concerned about the possibility of maintaining a linear narrative of selfhood in such conditions, suggesting that the ‘flexible’ employees of the neoliberal era may find themselves experiencing ‘drift’. The frequent disruptions to individual biographies render self-identity fragile. As Illouz (2007) argues, this vulnerability goes some way to explaining the pervasiveness of therapy culture, since it addresses ‘the volatile nature of selfhood and of social relationships in late modernity’:

It is ‘good for’ structuring divergent biographies, providing a technology to reconcile individuality with the institutions in which it operates, for coping with the disruptions that have become inherent in modern biographies, and, perhaps most importantly, for preserving the self’s standing and sense of security, rendered fragile precisely by the fact that the self is continually performed, evaluated, and validated by others. (Illouz, 2007: 71)

The importance of the role of others in the reflexive process has been highlighted by Holmes (2010) and Burkitt (2012), who argue that Giddens’ account of reflexivity is overly individualistic. Holmes (2010) suggests we think about reflexivity as an embodied process, involving a ‘juggling’ of emotions, in which social actors attempt to make sense of their lives and construct and reconstruct the self, in relation to others. In an era where there are few guidelines and many possibilities, people experiment, trying out new modes of selfhood and ways of being with others. This does not necessarily generate fear and anxiety but may inspire playfulness or excitement. Nonetheless, it increasingly requires the ability to interpret not just one’s own emotions but those of others as people navigate ‘the emotional ups and downs of living within a complex and uncertain world’ (Holmes, 2010: 149). Following Holmes (2010), Burkitt (2012: 469) argues that emotions are central to reflexivity, not simply attendant to it: ‘they are the basis and motive for reflexive thought’ (emphasis in original). Burkitt (2012), like Archer, understands reflexivity as dialogical, but his account puts much more importance on the self’s emotional relationships with others. The internal conversation incorporates the voices of numerous others with whom the self has been emotionally involved, it is ‘coloured by the emotional stance that others take, and have taken towards us, especially at key or formative periods in our lives, and something of this stays with us in our reflection on the social world and the self’ (Burkitt, 2012: 471). In sum, reflexivity, as an emotional and cognitive imaginative process, is inextricably tied to our relations with others.

Once the self becomes a project to be continually made-over, emotions and self-identity become ripe for commodification. Bauman (1998) has argued that when commitments are no longer for life, but ‘until further notice’ the consumption of ‘lifestyle’ goods may define the individual more than their work. An entire happiness industry (Ahmed, 2010), founded on positive psychology and incorporating self-help, therapy and wellbeing services and products, allows consumers to outsource emotion work (Hochschild, 2012; Patulny and Olsen, 2019). Along with physical fitness and a ‘healthy’ diet, happiness becomes part of the wellbeing regimen, requiring constant self-monitoring, which Binkley (2011) argues constitutes a new form of self-governance and a markedly neoliberal subjectivity, aspiring toward endless self-improvement.

In the next section, we turn to a closer examination of therapy culture as it is shaped by macro-level processes and played out in everyday micro-practices.

Psychology, therapy culture and selfhood: Coping with the disruptions inherent in late modernity

The growth of psychology and therapy, and the subsequent popularisation of these ideas, has produced a new emotional style – and a new language of selfhood – that calls attention to emotional injuries, needs, and help-seeking (Busfield, 2011; Duffy and Yell, 2014; Illouz, 2008). This new language has become part of the everyday, extending far beyond the specialised knowledge of experts. It is embedded in mundane social interactions; voiced in support groups, television talk shows, celebrity interviews, magazines, self-help literature, films, blogs, social media, and podcasts, and utilised in the operations of government departments (Madsen, 2014: 3–4).

Illouz (2008: 3) argues that the role of the cultural sociologist is to examine how particular meanings (here, therapeutic discourse) ‘come to be what they are and why, in being what they are, they “accomplish things” for people’. How are meanings knitted into everyday life (Gubrium and Holstein, 2000)? How are they used to cultivate relationships and deal with uncertainties, and why have they come to inform our understandings of self and others?

Culture is expressed in everyday social practices and ‘must work both practically and theoretically’ (Illouz, 2007: 48; see Alexander et al., 2006). It stretches across complex theories to the ordinary events of daily life, and it is ‘only within the context of a practical framework’ that a theoretical schema becomes integrated in routine conceptions of the self (Illouz, 2007: 48). For therapeutic ideas and ideals to take hold, they must become commonplace: embedded in interaction rituals and institutional routines. Therapeutic discourse is both a specialised body of knowledge (theory) and a broader cultural framework for the production and ‘retooling’ (re-making, re-storying, re-scripting) of the self (Illouz, 2007: 48). This framework ‘orients’ our understandings of self and others and ‘generates specific emotional practices’ (Illouz, 2008: 12; Lively and Weed, 2014; Maclean, 2020) and identity work (Schwalbe and Mason-Schrock, 1996: 115; Snow and Anderson, 1987: 1348).

Most significantly, it is the performative aspect of the therapeutic narrative that has led to its dispersal across multiple settings ‘because it reorganizes experience as it tells it’:

[A] wide variety of social sites…provide a platform on which healing is performed…it is in the experience of self-change and in the construction of that experience that modern subjects experience themselves as morally and socially most competent. Self-change is perhaps the chief source of contemporary moral worth. (Illouz, 2008: 184)

In an array of settings – including the celebrity interview – social actors present for others the meaning of their situation. In this way, the therapeutic narrative produces emotions ‘as public objects to be exposed, discussed…and evaluated for their authenticity’ (Illouz, 2008: 180). As the self becomes more private, focused on its emotionality, it also becomes more public because it is on show for others (Illouz, 2008: 180). Because the therapeutic narrative is located in the market, it offers strategies for self-governance, empowerment, and self-improvement: resources for neoliberal subjectivity (Madsen, 2014: 77). Hence the (private) emotional practices voiced by Lawson and Wax offer commodities of self-improvement to be consumed by others.

The therapeutic narrative of self

In the therapeutic narrative, the self has been injured and subsequently healed through the recognition and ‘working through’ of this injury. Various forms of suffering fit into this narrative, but foremost it is an emotional injury (Illouz, 2008: 180; Madsen, 2014: 85). The prototypical narrative begins with a problem that is identified and ‘owned’ in adulthood (e.g. my addiction to alcohol), and works backwards through the biography to pinpoint its cause and resolve it (e.g. the cause of my addiction can be located in early family dysfunction). These earlier life events constitute the ‘complicating action’ of the narrative and are selected and linked with other events and situations through ‘an emotional logic’ to produce ‘meaning, direction, and purpose’ in the person’s life (Illouz, 2008: 172–3).

Moreover, episodes of early trauma may cause damaging effects outside the person’s awareness. It is the ‘unearthing’ (excavation) of the cause of the current predicament – the underlying issue – that activates the reworking, or re-storying of the self (Illouz, 2008: 174; Ricoeur, 1991). Wax’s account of her reworking of self centres on early episodes of trauma, with the micro-emotional practices of mindfulness held out as the means of healing – of triumphing over suffering.

Making sense of the expanding scope of therapeutic discourse

Psychology – specifically the therapeutic narrative – has become ‘a deeply internalized cultural schema’ organising interpretations of self and other, autobiography, and interaction rituals (Illouz, 2008: 156; Eagleton, 1983: 14). Illouz (2008: 178) has identified five key factors that explain how this cultural schema became embedded in the day-to-day operations of institutions of the state and market that control many social resources, shaping our ‘modern imaginings’ at the micro-social level.

First, changes in psychological theory paved the way for the widespread dissemination of therapeutic ideas. The rise of ego psychology marked a shift from the pessimism and determinism of Freudian psychology, with a focus on the ego as central to human behaviour (rather than the id), and an interest in the impact of the environment and early relationships on ‘problems of normal development’ (Mitchell and Black, 1995: 24). Such psychologists as Hartmann, Adler, Fromm, and Ellis argued for a view of self as adaptive and flexible. This enabled a more optimistic view of self-development, and forged connections between psychology and the ideals of American popular culture: self-help and self-reliance, ‘the pursuit of happiness…and the belief in the perfectibility of the self’ (Illouz, 2008: 158). But it was the humanist movement, led by Maslow and Rogers, that helped to firmly integrate the alliance between ego psychology and dominant conceptions of selfhood (Illouz, 2008: 159). Rogers saw ‘mental health as the normal progression of life’ and theorised the ‘idea of self-actualization…the built-in motivation present in every life form to develop its potentials to the fullest extent possible’ (Illouz, 2008: 159).

Secondly, the professional authority of psychologists increased from the late 1960s, as sexuality and self-development were brought into the public arena through student protests, the activism of Second Wave feminism and, later, by the gay rights movement. Both the expanding consumer market and the sexual revolution ‘made the self, sexuality, and private life into crucial sites of identity’ (Illouz, 2008: 162). With the paperback revolution well underway in the 1960s, popular psychology could reach more readers. Self-help books, many of them penned by psychologists, proliferated from the last decades of the 20th century (Rimke, 2000), together with a plethora of self-improvement industries (e.g. yoga, meditation, wellness podcasts). Increasingly, celebrities are invested in these industries – evidenced in the entrepreneurial activities of Lawson and Wax – often presenting their personal narratives of suffering and self-improvement, thus locating themselves at the intersection of emotions, the market and media technologies.

Thirdly, therapeutic discourse has been incorporated into state functions. The emphasis on social adjustment and wellbeing in public policy following the Second World War saw the use of psychological language and assessment practices in the establishment of rehabilitation services and community health initiatives. In the legal arena, courts have increasingly recognised emotional injuries and, more recently, the practice of restorative justice (Van Stokkom, 2002). Psychological experts are routinely called ‘to testify on behalf of emotionally injured victims’ and defendants are assessed and treated by therapists (Illouz, 2008: 164). As Greco and Stenner (2008: 2–3) observe, ‘emotions have become conspicuous and increasingly important’ across a range of ‘functionally specialized spheres of social activity’, including law, media, business, education, health, and politics.

Fourth, the expansion of mental disorders listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), especially since the publication of DSM-III (American Psychiatric Association, 1980), has pathologised – and brought attention to – a wider range of behaviours. These changes have expanded the sphere of activity of psy professionals and broadened the availability of categories of suffering. The broadening of the boundaries of ‘depression’ and the entry of ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’ into the DSM-III – both focused on emotional symptoms (Busfield, 2011) – have contributed to the incorporation of therapeutic discourse into everyday life.

Finally, Illouz (2008: 167) argues that psychology has ‘spilled over’ into various sectors of civil society. Feminists have used psychological knowledge, particularly ‘the category of trauma’ (Illouz, 2008: 168), to critique the family, protect children, press for legislative and policy change and thus ‘to convert private ills into political problems’. This opened the way for other political actors ‘by making claims to victimhood and psychic damage in the name of ideals of personhood that intertwined the psychic and the political’ (Illouz, 2008: 169; see Campbell and Manning, 2018). These five interconnected processes have fed and reinforced the weight of therapeutic discourse in popular culture, encapsulating the ideal of emotional life as ‘something in need of management and control’ through ‘the incessant expanding ideal of health channeled by the state and the market’ (Illouz, 2008: 171).

Mass media, the celebrity interview and reflexivity

The celebrity interview is a rich site for investigating emotional reflexivity and the influence of therapeutic discourse as it manifests in mainstream popular culture. To maintain their public profile, celebrities must engage in promotional media and increasingly this demands of them candid – or at least seemingly candid – discussion of emotional trials and how they were overcome. As Nunn and Biressi (2010) argue, celebrities face significant affective demands to deliver intimate and authentic emotional performances in interviews to gain the trust of the public. The interview provides a platform through which the celebrity can perform intimacy through engaging with therapeutic discourse. This very public reflexivity, which must be constantly updated to maintain fame, emphasises the ongoing emotion work demanded of late-modern individuals:

[T]he celebrity figure writes large the contradiction of contemporary identity for many citizens of the developed mediated society: the expectation that we have the right to live pain-free lives bound up with the current pressure to understand those same lives through painful emotional work: a compulsion which forms the central plank of contemporary biographical narratives of self-understanding. (Nunn and Biressi, 2010: 54)

In the following section we analyse interviews with two popular celebrities who have publicly discussed their emotional upheavals and practices: Nigella Lawson and Ruby Wax. The interviews were largely sourced from mass-market print magazines (and their associated websites), primarily aimed at a female readership.¹ Mass media are collective sites of shared meanings and values, arguably playing an increasingly significant role in socialisation as traditional sources of community decline (Pibram, 2019). Popular women’s magazines play a significant part in shaping normative femininity (McRobbie, 1996), and often construct themselves as helpful guides for women (McKay, 2003) in pursuing wellbeing and self-development, drawing on dominant therapeutic discourses, in a similar way to self-help literature (Zimmerman et al., 2001).

Celebrity profiles, particularly those featured in magazines, tend to emphasise the emotional lives of interviewees (Ricketson and Graham, 2018), promising their readers privileged insight into the celebrity’s inner world. As one experienced journalist explains, their aim is to write ‘the most revealing story possible’ (Callahan, 1995: 40). Celebrity journalism has become a key location for public exploration of the intimate:

Through celebrity profiles, the investigation of scandals in all their sordid details and the psychotherapeutic ramblings published in celebrity interviews, celebrity journalism is the location for the exploration of the ‘politics of the personal’ in our transformed and shifting public sphere. (Marshall, 2005: 28).

Nigella Lawson: ‘You have to stop thinking and respond…on the level of the senses’

Nigella Lawson, 61, is a British cook, food writer and television presenter. She has achieved international fame and, in the UK, has become ‘iconic’ (Hollows, 2003: 1979), known like ‘Diana’ or ‘Oprah’, by first name only. While Lawson is best known and frequently parodied for bringing glamour to the kitchen, her appeal depends on her fallibility and self-deprecating humour. Her performance of the ‘domestic goddess’ is ironic; she is a ‘self-conscious, self-aware icon of domestic femininity’ (Shapiro Sanders, 2009: 158). She champions the pleasures of cooking and eating, stating in her first book How to Eat, ‘I have nothing to declare but my greed’ (Lawson, 1999: xv). Lawson has experienced several significant emotional upheavals: her mother, sister and first husband died young from cancer. She was carer for both her mother and her husband. Her divorce from her second husband, Charles Saatchi, was heavily publicised after photos emerged of him apparently assaulting her in a restaurant. This was followed by a court case where Lawson was accused of drug use and two employees accused of fraud. Giving evidence at the trial, she described her life with Saatchi as being subjected to ‘intimate terrorism’ (Freeman, 2020), explaining her drug use as a way of coping with an ‘intolerable’ situation. In a recent interview Lawson described her strong exterior during the trial as ‘armour’: she had no choice but to ‘plough on’ on the outside while ‘not coping on the inside’ (Freeman, 2020). While her former employees won the court case, it was Lawson who received the most support from the public.

Despite scandals and controversy, Lawson has remained popular, publishing 14 books, most with an accompanying television series, over two decades. Each book or series takes place at a different point in her life and gives the reader an insight into her emotional life since, as well as writing about her food philosophy, Lawson also discusses personal memories and the affective experience of eating and cooking. Adding to her authentic appeal, she gives frequent interviews and was described recently in Harper’s Bazaar as, ‘relatable, reliable, and genuine’ (Betancourt, 2021). These interviews are valuable marketing opportunities for Lawson; her performance encourages her fans to literally buy into her image of domestic happiness through purchasing her books and her range of cookware. As a former journalist, she is acutely aware that, although an interview is a performance, the subject is not fully in control of the narrative, and while Lawson consistently attempts to bring the focus back to the topic of food, she has also been required to answer questions about her personal trials.

Lawson often discusses the impact of cooking on her emotional wellbeing. Her most recent book, Cook, Eat, Repeat: Ingredients, Recipes and Stories (2021), was written during London’s COVID-19 lockdown, at a time when mental health issues peaked. In the promotional interviews for the book Lawson emphasised the benefits of cooking for coping with anxiety and stress: ‘you have to stop thinking and respond much more on the level of the senses, you know, pay attention to the feel of something or the smell as it cooks. And I think that’s a very good way of short-circuiting the monkey mind.’ For Lawson then, cooking is akin to mindfulness meditation, bringing consciousness into the present and stilling the mind: ‘it forces me into the moment and that’s good as I’m rather an anxious person’ (Trenoweth, 2018). Numerous studies have shown that the physicality and focus required in leisure activities, such as karate (Maclean, 2020) or quilting (Dickie, 2011), may serve to quieten the individual’s internal dialogue, allowing them respite from rumination and the ‘emotionally draining reflexive process’ (Maclean, 2020). However, while these activities at times allow for the stilling of reflexivity, they may also provide a way of engaging in reflexivity, ‘that is in thinking and feeling through the activity’ (Brownlie, 2014: 158). As Maclean (2020) found in her study of men’s participation in karate, the calmness the activity generated allowed participants to work through difficult emotions. Lawson recognises the potential for the repetitive tasks involved in cooking to allow the individual to ‘unwind’ or ‘decompress’, thereby facilitating the processing of emotional trials: ‘So if you have a friend or a child or anyone who is going through a difficult time and wants to talk about things that aren’t easy, I think you stand much more of a chance if you’re chopping some carrots at the same time’ (Trenoweth, 2018: 39).

In coping with the emotional trials in her own life, Lawson sees the pleasure of cooking and eating as a way to access ‘joy’, which she believes is fundamental to wellbeing. Responding to a question about a connection between the many losses in her life and her food philosophy, Lawson answers: ‘I think my food is a celebration of life and yes those things are linked…I feel that eating is so much about grabbing the moment…what’s the point of being alive if you don’t grab the things that are wonderful? I don’t want to waste life’ (Trenoweth, 2018: 35–6). When her first husband was ill, he suggested Lawson write her first cookbook. He died while she was filming the accompanying television series. Lawson, who later admitted she was depressed at the time, only took two weeks before returning to work. She explained in an interview: ‘Believe me, I spent a lot of time under a duvet. But…you have to push on’ (Freeman, 2020). Here, as in many of her media performances, Lawson combines a hint of vulnerability with traditional British stoicism. She avoids using overtly therapeutic discourse, noting that she doesn’t like the ‘seriousness’ of the term ‘self-care’, but nonetheless describes cooking as a therapeutic process, a way of ‘looking after’ the self (Betancourt, 2021). In an interview in early 2021, reflecting on living under lockdown, she states:

I feel that if you don’t cook…it’s hard to think of how you’d have got by in the last year. I get pleasure from looking at the ingredients, they’re like a still life in your house. A bowl of lemons or some leeks, and when you fry them, that tender green that arrives as a result…I don’t like the term self-care, in a way, because I think it’s become slightly acrid, and it speaks of that sort of seriousness similar to an incense stick…I just feel it’s about seizing the day and seizing the pleasures that are available, because that’s how you can just feel more joy. (Betancourt, 2021)

Engagement with a variety of smells, colours and textures stimulates joy, which Lawson sees as being crucial to ‘getting by’ in difficult times. Similarly, in her study of quilters, Dickie (2011: 212) found that sensory and aesthetic pleasure, such as ‘fondling’ the textures of the fabrics, added to the therapeutic impact of the quilt-making process. Sensory pleasure is experienced as therapeutic, a form of nurturing and sustaining the self. As Hollows (2003: 184) has argued, Lawson’s relationship to food, which focuses on pleasure, is a significant departure from pre-feminist ideals of domestic femininity where a woman’s relationship to food was based on serving others and depriving the self. Lawson’s work, in contrast to books by professional male chefs, has always emphasised the affective experience of cooking and eating. Comfort food can soothe the cook who is feeling ‘tired, stressed, sad or lonely’ (Lawson, cited by Hollows, 2003: 184–5). Her early work, produced when she had young children, addressed the issue of time scarcity with recipes that were not just speedy to prepare but a balm for the souls of the frazzled and harried middle-class working mother. The feeling of being a ‘domestic goddess’ after making a batch of scones or a sponge cake is a brief fantasy, a temporary but revitalising escape from ‘the pressures of managing and ordering both everyday life and feminine selves’ (Hollows, 2003: 192). Fantasy allows the individual to experiment with taking on a different identity (Ang, 1990), one that it may not be possible or even desirable to inhabit in everyday life. It is a form of reflexive play that can help work through emotions.

Another important aspect of the affective power of food and cooking is its ability to evoke memories and the emotions associated with them (Lupton, 1996). As Lawson describes it, cooking allows her to be in two places at once, both in the present and revisiting the past. During lockdown, she was struck by how cooking caused her to think of those she had cooked for before, preparing meatballs for example: ‘I just cannot ever make them without having an intensely physical flashback of my children with their plump little hands making them with me when they were small’ (Lawson, 2021). What Lupton (1996) describes as the food/memory/emotion link contributes to stimulating reflexivity and the working through of emotional trials. Lawson has described her relationship to food as strongly influenced by her difficult childhood. Her mother – who she says was ‘full of stress and anxiety’ – taught her children to cook but did not allow herself the pleasures of relishing eating, in order to remain thin (Freeman, 2020). ‘I really hated family mealtimes’, Lawson revealed, ‘and maybe what I’ve done now is make it into something I can enjoy’ (Freeman, 2020). This is perhaps the most overt example of Lawson demonstrating emotional reflexivity in describing how she worked through the trauma of her fraught relationship with her mother. As she describes it: ‘My attitude towards food is such a repudiation of her, a triumph over her’ (Freeman, 2020).

Cooking, in Lawson’s formulation, is a flexible emotional practice that may provide joy through sensory pleasure, stimulation through fantasy, serenity through mindful activity or the processing of emotional upheavals through associated memories. In describing her emotional practices in response to questions about her personal trials, Lawson indirectly draws on therapeutic discourses in interviews, absorbing potentially damaging revelations of personal upheavals into her resilient yet vulnerable persona. Her therapeutic narrative of self is much more subtle than other celebrities, such as Wax, who zealously endorse therapy culture and the incorporation of regular wellbeing practices into everyday life.

Ruby Wax: ‘We have to…develop new skills to survive’

Ruby Wax is a 68-year-old American-British comedian, actor, writer, and mental health campaigner. Born in the US, she was the only child of Austrian Jews who fled the Nazi regime in 1938. In her interviews and books, Wax has spoken openly of her deeply unhappy and chaotic upbringing. In 2020, she told a journalist:

My life was miserable…I had a very strange upbringing. My parents bought grave plots and took me to see them. There were three: one said ‘Mummy’, one said ‘Daddy’ and the middle one said ‘Ruby’. When I was in my 20s they used to lock me in the house. I think they thought that if I went out I’d become a drug addict…So I escaped. (Gannon, 2020).

First, Wax ‘escaped’ to the University of California to study psychology. After a year, she left the US, hitchhiking across Europe, and settling in the UK, where she trained in classical theatre. In the 1980s, Wax moved into comedy, and in the 1990s and early 2000s she hosted several documentary chat show series, most notably The Full Wax and Ruby Wax Meets… These shows made her a household name with audience figures of 14 million (Gannon, 2020).

Amidst her fame and controversial headline moments, Wax reinvented herself as a mental health campaigner, author, and advocate of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT). She had suffered bouts of depression for much of her life, with some episodes leaving her bedridden for several weeks at a time (Gannon, 2020). Wax describes the turning point that led her to ‘come out’ about her mental illness in A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled (2016):

I drove myself so hard…that, seven years ago, I crashed, burned, and drove off the cliffs of sanity. Shortly thereafter I was institutionalized and sat on a chair for months, too terrified to get up. I had suffered depression all my life, but this episode was the Big Kahuna. (p. 3)

The ‘Big Kahuna’ is the complication – the upheaval – that disrupts her biographical sense of self. Wax must engage in interpretive work to make sense of this suffering; to connect it to earlier life events. In excavating the past, she embraces a therapeutic narrative of self, working ‘backwards’, using the ‘emotional logic’ of trauma to make sense of the impact of her past on her present predicament:

My ‘aha’ moment came when I realized I had used my success as armour to cover the chaos inside me…I was just a front; and, behind the front, no one was at home. I have noticed that celebrity is a fantastic antidote to a dysfunctional early life. However, after this deepest of deep depressions…I thought it would be a good time to reinvent myself and…find out who, exactly, had been inhabiting my brain all those years. (p. 3)

In Ruby Wax’s Mad Confessions (2012), a documentary aimed at destigmatising mental illness, Wax reveals her own story of clinical depression. ‘Coming clean about my condition has really helped me’, Wax (2012) asserts, as she revisits the private hospital, where she was ‘institutionalized’, and introduces the viewer to her psychiatrist who reflects on the nature of depression as an illness and Wax’s presentation on admission. Recalling these dark days, Wax can scarcely restrain her enthusiasm as she repeatedly tells the viewer: ‘God, when I was here, I was so not in this condition [present-day wellness].’ Her personal confessions to the viewer – akin to an internal conversation – together with her conversations with others, provide material for the reflexive processing of her emotional trials. For Wax, this documentary constitutes a ‘platform on which healing is performed’ and ‘self-change’ demonstrated (Illouz, 2008: 184). Wax assumes that her depression probably started when she was a teenager:

I remember incidences in shops where she [mother] would scream like an animal because I wanted a dress instead of…shoes. If you push somebody too much, they will get ill and that, combined with genes, is how you get depression and that might be what happened to me. (Wax, 2012)

In the manner of corroborating evidence, she adds: ‘When Ed [her husband] met my parents, it dawned on him why I might have depression.’ The screen cuts to Ed, often described as ‘the rock in her life’ (Gannon, 2020), who says: ‘They were awful. I’m not kidding…Even for me, they were really tricky to deal with. They were just basically incredibly damaged people.’ Wax’s identity work is ‘coloured by the emotional stance’ taken by Ed, revealing the relational character of her reflexivity (Burkitt, 2012: 471).

While in hospital, Wax was introduced to MBCT. Buoyed by the effects it had on her mental state, she launched into a master’s degree in MBCT, graduating in 2013. Since then, she has written three bestselling books on mental health (Wax, 2013, 2016, 2018). She has also performed in roadshows as a tie-in to the publication of her books, capitalising on her success in the manner of entrepreneurial, neoliberal selfhood (Binkley, 2011).

Wax practices mindfulness each day to maintain her mental health and stay as calm as possible. In her 2016 book, she sets out a six-week MBCT course to introduce others to the practice. On its release, one journalist claimed that the pairing of mindfulness with ‘the irreverent Wax’ seemed an anathema (Northover, 2017). Wax agreed: ‘But it’s science…not a guru-y thing…if it was something New Agey – I’d take the piss out of it’ (Northover, 2017). Mindfulness as an ‘emotional practice’ enables Wax to manage the ordinary disruptions of everyday life, to reduce anxieties and get through the demands of work and home. While not a complete cure, by being aware of her thoughts and feelings, she gets ‘early warnings’ and can intervene to reduce her stress levels and ward off depression: ‘I can deal with things much better. If I lose my temper I don’t poison myself with my own anger’ (Langley, 2018).

To gain the benefits of mindfulness requires the same self-discipline that one invests in daily workouts at the gym: ‘You can’t learn mindfulness by taking a pill (I, who love pills, only wish you could)…No one can help you, except you…but first you need to build some muscle to strengthen your ability to focus’ (Wax, 2018: 38, 43). Deploying her trademark humour and self-deprecating asides, Wax invites the reader into her reflexive processing, normalising the struggles of achieving a daily mindfulness routine.

Above all else, for Wax, it is ‘the science’ that keeps her engaged in the practice. Through her studies, she understands the effect it has on the brain ‘and therefore on well-being…the benefits are biological, psychological and neurological’ (2016: 44). By learning to pay attention to our inner world, ‘we’re…resculpting our neural pathways’ (2016: 45). And this is critical to our wellbeing as a species, Wax argues. Most people are ‘frazzled’, she explains; endless to-do lists, racing between tasks, and responding to social media means we often push ourselves too hard and ‘hit neural fatigue’ (2016: 22). Utilising expert knowledge from a neuroscientist and a monk, Wax claims that we are trying to manage ‘the complexities of the twenty-first century’ with ‘Stone Age brains’; our evolutionary features no longer work for us, so we need to ‘develop new skills to survive’ (Langley, 2018).

Inspired by the audience interaction during her roadshows, Wax established the Frazzled Café project to create opportunities for people to ‘talk openly with others who understand how they are feeling’. They are not mentally ill, Wax emphasises: ‘they’re just frazzled. Which is everybody…We have a lot of pressure, being human’ (Northover, 2017). Moving onto Zoom during the COVID lockdown, these groups mushroomed: ‘We became a real close community which was incredible, all of us helping each other’ (Gannon, 2020). This initiative provided a means of creating social capital and alleviating some of the pressures in 21st-century lives.

Building on the insights gained from the Frazzled Café project and knowledge of the effects of MBCT on brain function, Wax travelled to Finland, China, the US, and Greece to research a range of businesses and communities ‘trying to work in different, kinder ways and promote more people and planet-friendly attitudes’ (Fagan, 2020). In Finland, she visited progressive schools where empathy and wellbeing are taught. She was particularly impressed by the outdoor clothing company, Patagonia, based in California, which houses an on-site creche for employees’ children: ‘I’d work there tomorrow’, Wax told a journalist in a recent interview; ‘there’s such an air of joy and you can hear the children laughing and people work harder as a result’ (Fagan, 2020).

Wax sees her book, And Now for the Good News (2020), which showcases these ‘different, kinder ways’, as ‘a directory of possibilities for people’, explaining that ‘even making tiny changes can add up and promote change’ (Fagan, 2020). Her key message is that we need to alter how we live by consciously creating mutually supporting communities and practising MBCT, changes that will lower our cortisol levels, enhance wellbeing, and allow us to be ‘kinder’ to ourselves – changes that are doubly important during the pandemic. Making a claim for authentic selfhood, she told a journalist: ‘I don’t talk the talk, I walk the walk, so I…find out for myself what it feels like’ (Gannon, 2020). In 2021, Wax moved into the eco-community of Findhorn (Scotland), explaining: ‘I’m here now because it makes me feel good’ (Jaye, 2021, our emphasis), thus elevating the emotional life as something to be reflexively managed and controlled (Illouz, 2008: 171).

Conclusion

In interviews and other media, Nigella Lawson and Ruby Wax present for others the meanings of their personal situations. Through identifying the emotional practices and interpretive work they use to make sense of, and manage, the disruptions of late modern life, they ‘foreground the affective terrain which all individuals are forced to negotiate’ (Nunn and Biressi, 2010: 49–50). Both Lawson and Wax emphasise the stresses inherent in contemporary lives: the pressure to ‘juggle’ multiple demands and deal with busy schedules. While Lawson advocates focusing on the sensory aspects of cooking – the colours, the smells – to short-circuit ‘the monkey mind’ and take joy in the moment, Wax looks to the cultivation of ‘new skills’ through MBCT to quieten the mind and change the neural structure of the brain. She also advocates the creation of conscious communities for social support. Whereas Wax has embarked on a project of ‘reinvention’, Lawson’s identity work is subtler, more private, and less prescriptive. She entreats us to find pleasures in the fabric of our lives, like ‘looking’ at the ingredients and smelling the food as it cooks. In contrast, Wax encourages us to make materials for our lives, to weave new practices into our daily routines.

Despite their different approaches, both Lawson and Wax show us how we might adapt to the rigours of late modernity by engaging with therapeutic discourse. Their reflexive processing of their emotional trials is punctuated by uncertainty and ambivalence – and play, for Lawson – and tied to their intimate relations with others. Wax’s parents and husband play significant roles in her identity work of reinventing the self. Lawson is less explicit on these matters, although she does mention that specific foods and cooking tasks stimulate comfort through associated memories of intimate others, which in turn feeds the reflexive work of self-healing.

Like other celebrities, Lawson and Wax must constantly renew their reflexive projects of the self to maintain their newsworthiness and ensure their moral worthiness as carriers of ‘self-change’ and ‘healing’ (Illouz, 2008: 184) in the public sphere. These pressures echo the ongoing identity work required of late-modern individuals as they grapple with the disruptions of everyday life, including those brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. More than ever before, celebrities are at the vanguard of these practices. Located at the intersection of expert knowledge, emotions, media technologies, including social media, and the market, their therapeutic approaches to wellbeing and ‘care of the self’ hold out – and privilege – particular resources for self-improvement and ‘retooling’ the self. Madsen (2014: 86) points out that identity work constitutes an ongoing project in late modernity: ‘one is never truly healthy; new forms of aliments [and hardships] can arise.’ Celebrities, who can be understood as ‘empowered victims…become living proof of successful transformations in the therapeutic culture and thereby acquire an aura of authority through their personal life stories’ (Madsen, 2014: 86).

Celebrities’ ‘successful transformations’ speak to the increasing need to become psychically skilled to succeed in the contemporary world. These skills hinge on the capacity to turn a negative event into a positive experience; to view upheavals as opportunities for re-inventing or ‘re-tooling’ the self. While these skills constitute forms of interpretive capital, they are also deeply social. As Illouz (2007: 66) reminds us: ‘emotions are the very stuff of which social interactions are made and transformed’. The (new) emotional style ‘is crucial to how people acquire networks…and build…social capital, that is, the way in which personal relationships are converted into forms of capital, such as career advancement or increased wealth’ (Illouz, 2007: 67).

Lawson’s and Wax’s deployment of interpretive capital in their public performances of self can be read as ‘living proof’ of the enhanced life chances brought about by engaging with therapeutic discourse. Their respective use of various emotional practices enables them to accomplish new forms of sense-making and new directions – both career and personal advancements – in the wake of upheavals and emotional trials. Put simply, these resources give them access to ‘spheres of wellbeing’ (Illouz, 2007: 67), enabling them to ‘get on’ with their lives. In discussing their vulnerabilities and sharing their reflexive practices, celebrities gain the trust of their audience, establishing themselves as reliable and authentic guides to navigating the upheavals of late-modern life. As the significance of mass media as a shared site of collective meanings grows, the public identity work of celebrities reflects our imaginings of the successful emotion work of self-improvement.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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