As a seminal work in the self-help genre, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind contributes to the tradition of literature that empowers individuals to take control of their mental and emotional states and improve their lives. The self-help genre began in 1859 with the publication of the book Self-Help by Samuel Smiles, which promoted the Victorian virtues of hard work and thriftiness as paths to awakening one’s potential. Since then, the genre has grown to encompass topics such as parenting, spirituality, relationships, and personal growth, and publications in this genre collectively generate billions of dollars in sales every year.

Joseph Murphy’s book falls specifically into the self-help or self-improvement subgenre of altering habitual thought processes to achieve one’s goals—a concept that Murphy calls “mind dynamics.” Before the publication of Murphy’s work, the best-known and best-selling 20th-century authors in the field of mind dynamics included public speaking expert Dale Carnegie, author of the 1936 work How to Win Friends and Influence People; author Napoleon Hill, who wrote the 1937 book Think and Grow Rich; and minister Norman Vincent Peale, author of the 1952 book The Power of Positive Thinking.

Peale in particular was known for presenting examples of people who changed their lives for the better through Bible-based affirmative thinking, and as a minister himself, Murphy combines this approach with his background as a psychologist and a scholar of Hindu philosophy.