Absent Fathers, Lost Sons: The Search for Masculine IdentityA Jungian analyst examines masculine identity and the psychological repercussions of ‘fatherlessness’—whether literal, spiritual, or emotional—in the baby boom generation An experience of the fragility of conventional images of masculinity is something many modern men share. Psychoanalyst Guy Corneau traces this experience to an even deeper feeling men have of their fathers’ silence or absence—sometimes literal, but especially emotional and spiritual. Why is this feeling so profound in the lives of the postwar “baby boom” generation—men who are now approaching middle age? Because, he says, this generation marks a critical phase in the loss of the masculine initiation rituals that in the past ensured a boy’s passage into manhood. In his engaging examination of the many different ways this missing link manifests in men's lives, Corneau shows that, for men today, regaining the essential “second birth” into manhood lies in gaining the ability to be a father to themselves—not only as a means of healing psychological pain, but as a necessary step in the process of becoming whole. |
Contents
The Absent Father | 7 |
Lost Sons | 39 |
The Fear of Intimacy | 93 |
Copyright | |
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absent father accept aggression alcoholic Archetypes aware become behavior body boys C. G. Jung Carl Gustav Jung child Chris culture deep desire Dionysus disincarnated dream emotional energy eternal adolescent experience express fact fantasies father's absence fear feelings feminine Fisher King frightened girlfriend GUY CORNEAU hero heterosexual homosexual Hopcke human ideal identification individual initiation inner internal intimacy James Hillman Julian Jungian lack Little Prince lives male Marie-Louise von Franz masculine identity Maurice Champagne-Gilbert men's Michael Montreal mother complex mutilation myth nature never ourselves parents partner Percival person physical pornography present problems psyche psychoanalyst psychological puer Puer Aeternus reality relationship remains repressed rites rituals Robert Bly role seducer sense shadow silence single-parent families society son's sons suffering suicide symbolic talk teenage therapy things tion touch tribal unconscious Vince violence wife woman women wound young