This article aim to present the context of reception of a self - knowledge notion by the Brazilian educational field. What was delimited in the purposes of this analysis was the effect of the migration of an idea between distinct contexts, without the proper theoretical treatment that justified the adoption of the idea by the new context. Thus, we use as data collection some researches carried out in the country at the postgraduate level, in which the subject of self-knowledge was addressed, trying to identify the justifications and the forms of signification for adopting that idea. As a result, using Discourse Analysis, one can see from the enunciates described that the forms of meaning of the self-knowledge notion used by research resemble the prescriptive ways in which self-help literatures have historically used this notion to reach their readership. Therefore, the indication suggests certain techniques to be used by the subjectivities put in the game of the significant relation and meaning, for a supposed dominion of itself.

reception context, self-knowledge, educational field