Full Description
Explore the tensions and tenderness between fathers and sons in this masterpiece of narrative psychology!"We live in a story-shaped world," as the editors say, and Between Fathers and Sons: Critical Incident Narratives in the Development of Men's Lives shows how the stories we construct come to shape our perceptions of the world and of ourselves. The incidents recounted here are more than just moving, funny, or painful stories of fathers and sons. Each is a myth that helped form the authors'social and moral identity. This blend of feeling and intellect, story and analysis makes Between Fathers and Sons a work of art as well as a work of psychology. The contributors--many of them pioneers of narrative therapy--bring unique insight to bear on their own stories. Using a broad array of narrative forms, from the soliliquy to the multiple narrator, they explore and analyze themes of silence, mystery, respect, sports, self-reliance, and longing for continuity.In the stories you will find in Between Fathers and Sons:
a father's disappointed silence is transformed as it resonates through four generations
a Korean immigrant faces the differences between his ideals of fatherhood and his son's American view
a father-son fishing trip ends with the biggest fish ever--or no fish at all
betrayed by his stepfather, a boy seeks guidance from stories of his dead father
a Baptist preacher helps his son make an agonizing choice
a grown man's memory of a childhood event gives him new insight into his father's identity and their relationship
Between Fathers and Sons is a landmark volume in father-son relationships and in narrative therapy. It is destined to become a classic in the field.
Contents
Contents
About the Editors
Contributors
Chapter 1. General Introduction
From a Story to a Book
Rationale, Objectives, and Method
Contemporary Sociocultural Context
The Essays
And Just One More Thing
Chapter 2. Sons and Fathers: The Storied Nature of Human Relationships
Genres
Style and Content
Sacred Stories
Three Perspectives
Section I. Identity Stories
Chapter 3. I Am Older Than My Father
Chapter 4. Remembering the Origins of a Constructivist Psychologist
Chapter 5. Teaching by Doing
Chapter 6. Every Kid Deserves a Chance
Being There
Chapter 7. Responsibilities
Chapter 8. On Coming to Understand My Father: A Personal and Professional Journey
The Emotional Relationship with My Father
What Relations to My Work?
Conclusion
Section II. Stories of Emotional Life
Chapter 9. The One That Got Away--Or Did It?
Mark's Story
Richard's Story
A Conversation Between Father and Son
Chapter 10. Learning to Appreciate the Sublime: Don't Knock the Rock
Chapter 11. Remembering My Father
Context
Elaborating the Memory
On Fathers and Sons
The Twenty-First Century
Anchoring Across
Coda
Chapter 12. Blessed Be the Name of the Father: Generational Exercises
Kenneth Gergen: On Relations with My Father
John Stanford Gergen: Life with My Father
Chase Martini: On Relations with My Father
Spanning the Generations: Beyond the Silence
Chapter 13. Their Way
Chapter 14. In Absentia
Section III. Stories of Self-Understanding
Chapter 15. The Presence of What is Missing: Memory, Poetry, and the Ride Home
Chapter 16. Paternal Role Slippage Across Cultures
Critical Incident
Father-Son Relationship As Culture-Bound
Resolution
Chapter 17. To Tell the Secrets of My Prison House
Chapter 18. My Measure, My Guide, and Still a Mystery
Small-Town Preacher, in Motion
Father As Teacher and Taskmaster
A Critical Piece of Advice
Sequelae
Epilogue
Chapter 19. Farewell to Vienna: The Authority of Nostalgia
Epilogue
Index
Reference Notes Included
