8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Story of Growing Up, September 3, 2010
This review is from: Growing Up Jung: Coming of Age as the Son of Two Shrinks (Hardcover)
It's rare to come across a book that is so absorbing, suspenseful and such real fun to read that I don't want to put it down, yet is true to life in its humor and full of wise understanding intelligently, even cunningly, articulated. It's a good story about growing up; as an elder still doing that, I found it quite valuable. The author is quite outrageously honest. The book is also a good education, in a practical fashion, about basic Jungian ideas on psychological growth toward maturity and independence and the inevitable challenges on the way.
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
What if You Were Raised by Therapists?, September 17, 2010
This review is from: Growing Up Jung: Coming of Age as the Son of Two Shrinks (Hardcover)
I grew up in a markedly unpsychological, working class family in the 1950's and 60's in a small town in the South. When I was about to depart for college, my father said, "I hope you won't study any of that psychology stuff." To my parents, the inner life was best avoided. I've often fantasized that I would have been so much happier and better adjusted had my parents emphasized our interior worlds. Perhaps because of this deficit, I've had a lifelong interest in psychology.
I was drawn to Toub's memoir because I wondered how I might have fared growing up in a family where both parents were therapists who actively engaged in psychological explorations. I'm also attracted to the rich stew of Jungian psychology with its emphasis on dreams, myths, symbols, and archetypes.
Toub realizes that his parents were different. He writes about them in his introduction, "Most people did not go off to seminars in the desert and sit cross-legged with a bunch of other people and talk about their spirit guides." Most kids probably didn't analyze their dreams at the dinner table. And how many teenage males have discussed a fear of impotence with their mother and had her lead them in an imaginary exercise where they were encouraged to "become the erection" to gain confidence? Depending on your outlook, growing up in such an environment could sound intriguing, engaging, or even a bit creepy.
I suspect that Toub and perhaps his editors wanted to keep what could have been a heavy subject on the upbeat and readable side. Thus, the book comes across as entertainingly self-deprecating and lighthearted with each chapter broken into short sections. Toub, now 34 and married and divorced, survived his childhood and writes on psychology and other topics from Toronto.
Toub's life has no doubt been deeply influenced by having been raised by therapists as opposed to, say, a couple of bankers or accountants. One of his biggest struggles may have been detaching himself from an emotional dependence on his parents, particularly his mother. He seems to have navigated that successfully and suffered no more or less trauma or angst than most of the rest of us. Indeed, Toub writes, "I'm a Jungian. I possessed Jungian knowledge passed down to me from my parents, and used it to help me through hard times in my life." In many ways he benefited from and was grateful for his rather eccentric upbringing.
Toub's memoir illustrates that most of us face the same challenges growing up, regardless of what kind of family raised us. As we grow older, we learn how to use what we were offered and how to recover from what was damaging or missing. Toub has offered us an engaging example of how he has traveled this path.
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5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Be your true self !, August 27, 2010
This review is from: Growing Up Jung: Coming of Age as the Son of Two Shrinks (Hardcover)
Do you ever wonder why you do or say things that don't fit your self image ? Ever wonder why your relationships so frequently have the same theme, or how they might be related to your family of origin ? Do you wonder what lies beneath addictions and obsessions, yours and those closest to you ? If not, don't waste your time on this book.
This is a well-written and engaging look - honest, witty and stimulating - at these kinds of questions via one young man's struggle to emerge (he and Carl Jung would say "individuate") from a nurturing but uniquely directive family environment. I call it directive not because it specified content preferred by his parents but rather because it specified definitively how one gets the job done. Not "we want you to be a lawyer, or an engineer or a musician", but rather "you'll want to discover your true self, and here's the way to go about it."
The author is a columnist for Toronto's Globe & Mail and a blogger at Psychology Today. He's an insightful writer.
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