The Man Who Never Was

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Our unwarranted, inflated images of men-as all-powerful patriarchs, phalluses incarnate, monsters or idols-damage women and men alike, maintains British psychotherapist Sayers. In 15 lively psychoanalytic case histories, she explores how distorted notions of masculinity carry over into adult defense mechanisms of denial, mania and obsessive control. Some patients fear the strength the father represents, like Tessa, who treats her small son's father as a nonentity and barricades herself and the boy in their house to fend off potential male intruders. Another patient, Celia, having been brutally beaten as a girl by her father and whose mother stole her boyfriends, develops Oedipal fixations on a series of abusive lovers. Several case histories feature men who act out the male stereotypes of Don Juan, wimp, tough guy, con man and pervert. In a wise and liberating book, Sayers tempers Freud's male-centered theories with the mother-centered insights of Vienna-born British psychoanalyst Melanie Klein and with a feminist awareness of patriarchy's social, sexual and power imbalances. (Aug.)

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To make us conscious of deep, imagined ideas of men and masculinity, a psychotherapist presents 15 case studies that portray how different male stereotypes can fuel depression, obsessive behavior, or a severe break-up of personality.