Absent Fathers, Lost Sons: The Search for Masculine Identity by Guy Corneau
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
A book that helps to figure out some of the issues lurking in man’s subconsciousness. It surely opened doors of alternative thinking over my past and present motives of behavior. The archetypes presented in Corneaus work are devised from Jung’s Depth psychology. The stories are based on experience and observations of his patients and himself. One has to be careful to ascribe oneself traits and patterns that reflect in the stories. No person is a clear cut archetype, rather a compound of several characteristics. Whether it is the good guy, the pleaser, the bohemian, the warrior, … those archetypes all stem from 2 basic needs successfully suppressed in modern men – intimacy and aggressivity. While scared, and uninitiated young boy strives to become a man it inevitably results in failure and substitutes – the addict, the seducer. Suppressed aggressivity, on the other hand, is a result of a lack of guidance and form in handling the man’s vital force – the hero, the warrior.
In conclusion, G. Carneau urges fathers to be present in the lives of boys since early childhood, share intimacy from toddler age and initiate young boy into the world of men with transitional rituals (examples cited in the book).
Men know about those things, the problem is they don’t talk about them!