ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I will argue that the contemporary society can be conceptualised as a confessing society by drawing on Foucault’s writing on confession, technologies of power and technologies of the self (cf. Fejes and Dahlstedt 2012). One of the primary arguments made by Foucault (1998) is that verbalisation has become a central method through which people make themselves visible to themselves and to others and that people come to know who they are through verbalisation. In his writing, psychoanalysis is used as an example of how previous Christian practices of confession have become appropriated by a secular scientia sexualis (Foucault 1998), which has spread to most aspects of private life. In this context, confession does not specifi cally limit itself to the confession taking place in church, but also signifi es the most private and intimate relationships that we have with our lovers, family, friends, and with ourselves. Confession has become scientised.
