The Stories We Live By: Personal Myths and the Making of the Self (Paperback)

by Dan P. MacAdams (Author) "At the age of thirty-five, Margaret Sands made a two-thousand-mile pilgrimage across the country with her teenage daughter in order to break into an abandoned..." (more)
Key Phrases: conflicting imagoes, imago types, generative integration, Snow White, Karen Horney, Daniel Kessinger (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
No self-help treatise about exorcising fatalistic visions of one's life, this frequently wooden but intermittently arresting book proposes that "each of us comes to know who he or she is by creating a heroic story of the self." McAdams, a Chicago psychologist, argues against archetypal myths, although he makes tantalizing if fleeting references to fairy tales and other properties of mass culture. A little heavy on developmental theory, the work hypothesizes how people begin to "gather material" for their "self-defining stories" in infancy and early childhood. In several case studies McAdams demonstrates the role of myth, while one of the stronger sections explains how to write a narrative to uncover personal myths, offering a list of questions for that purpose. Elsewhere, McAdams discusses "imagoes"--defined as idealized concepts of self, the characters in personal narratives--and explores how such historical events as the Kennedy assassination are assimilated into one's own saga.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Ranging widely within the canon of Western psychology, McAdams claims to offer a new perspective on personal mythmaking. He discriminates between the collective myths that people inherit and the private myths that individuals create to formulate their identities. Using the terminology of literary narrative study and behavioral psychology, McAdams attempts to combine the two into a new theory of identity. There is a great deal of discussion of themes like grief and intimacy; references to Freud, Erik Erikson, and others; and reviews of the passage from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. While the book is easy reading, its theme has been dealt with before in numerous psychology textbooks. However, it could serve as an introduction to psychology and mythmaking. For large psychology collections.
- Nancy E. Zuwiyya, Binghamton City Sch. Dist., N.Y.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: The Guilford Press; 1 edition (January 3, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1572301880
• ISBN-13: 978-1572301887
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #388,859 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Seminal Work, September 26, 2005

By	Frank Markow (San Dimas, California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Stories We Live by: Personal Myths and the Making of the Self (Hardcover)

If you want to understand narrative psychology in a developmental framework here is where to start. It is not overly technical, which is actually a bit of a drawback for those of us who would like more background and theory. But, it is an excellent intruduction to the field, very readable, and many people cite McAdams in their subsequent reserach (which I certainly will be doing).

7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Time for Dan McAdams, June 5, 2007

By	Lightwright "Lightwright" (Off coast of Mass) - See all my reviews

A dear friend and life long student of Psych, who is about to become a doctor of Psych gave me this book several years ago. She'd written so many notes in it, which to me translates into value and reverance for what one reads. I always meant to read it, life just kept getting in the way. Finally it was time for me to meet the mind of Dan McAdams, at least as it was when he wrote this book, I think perhaps, slightly before it's time, maybe. It helped me to foster insights that have been like donning good reading glasses in a life with some patches of fog.

It's always so refreshing to relearn something we already knew at a deep unconcious level and be able to resonate with that on a higher level. This is what this book does for me. I highly suggest it to those who are interested in writing (anything) or learning more about them selves and how we all effect each other as well. No man is an island we are simutaneosly land and water to each other. Thank you Dr. McAdams and Dr. Sunshine my friend for giving me this ray of light.

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Identity Through Narrative Maps, July 12, 2008

By	Jan Arne Nilsen "Jan Nilsen" (Pasadena, LA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The book is a great read and informative of how one's identity is shaped through one's own narrative story.