Care of the Self

The Care of the Self (Greek: epimeleia heautou) is a concept developed by Michel Foucault in his later work, particularly the third volume of the History of Sexuality, to describe the rigorous practices through which individuals in ancient Greek and Roman cultures constituted themselves as ethical subjects. It is not self-care in the modern wellness-industry sense — a consumer practice of relaxation and restoration — but a disciplined, lifelong practice of self-examination, self-transformation, and truth-telling.

Foucault traced how the care of the self involved specific technologies — meditation, memorization, examination of conscience, consultation with mentors — that were understood as ethical work on oneself rather than obedience to external law. The practice of Parrhesia (frank speech, truth-telling) was central: the self-caring individual was one who could speak the truth about himself to others and hear the truth about himself spoken back. This reciprocity of truth-telling constituted the self as an object of ethical concern.

The care of the self has been read as Foucault's answer to the charge that his earlier work on power left no room for resistance or autonomy. The more precise reading is that he was showing how subjectivation has always contained its own counter-practices — that the same systems that produce subjects also produce the techniques through which subjects can redirect those systems against themselves.