What do you think?
Rate this book
Studies in Jungian Psychology by Jungian Analysts #67
Who Am I, Really?: Personality, Soul and Individuation
Book by Sharp, Daryl
- GenresPsychology
144 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1994
About the author
Daryl Sharp
49 books33 followersDaryl Leonard Merle Sharp – writer, Jungian analyst, publisher and bon vivant – was born in Regina, Saskatchewan in 1936. He lives in Toronto, Canada and has two sons and two daughters.
He earned two Bachelor degrees, one in mathematics and physics and the other in journalism, at Carleton University in Canada, and a Masters degree in literature and philosophy from the University of Sussex in England. Sharp entered training at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zürich in 1974, along with other members of the so-called "Canadian mafia," which included Fraser Boa, Marion Woodman and John Dourley.
Upon graduating in 1978, Sharp returned to Canada to begin an analytic practice and tour North America on the Jungian lecture circuit. Together with Marion Woodman and Fraser Boa, Sharp co-founded the Ontario Association of Jungian Analysts in Toronto in 1982 (followed by a training program for analysts in 2000).
In 1980, Sharp also began his major labour of love: Inner City Books, still the world's only publishing house dealing exclusively with the work of Jungian analysts. Sharp's first publication was his diploma thesis, The Secret Raven: Conflict and Transformation in the Life of Franz Kafka. Many others followed, including multiple publications by analysts such as Marion Woodman, Edward F. Edinger, James Hollis and J. Gary Sparks, and especially Marie-Louise von Franz, who graciously agreed to act as honorary patron of Inner City Books.
Today, in 2015, Sharp's enterprise has enjoyed significant success, selling millions of books with translations into approximately a dozen languages.
Sharp himself is the author of more than 30 titles, mainly designed to introduce and explain Jungian concepts to lay audiences. Perhaps his best known books are Personality Types: Jung's Model of Typology {1987}, The Survival Papers: Anatomy of a Midlife Crisis {1988}, and Digesting Jung: Food for the Journey {2001}. {Personality Types and Digesting Jung are available as free eBooks on Inner City Books' website.}
He earned two Bachelor degrees, one in mathematics and physics and the other in journalism, at Carleton University in Canada, and a Masters degree in literature and philosophy from the University of Sussex in England. Sharp entered training at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zürich in 1974, along with other members of the so-called "Canadian mafia," which included Fraser Boa, Marion Woodman and John Dourley.
Upon graduating in 1978, Sharp returned to Canada to begin an analytic practice and tour North America on the Jungian lecture circuit. Together with Marion Woodman and Fraser Boa, Sharp co-founded the Ontario Association of Jungian Analysts in Toronto in 1982 (followed by a training program for analysts in 2000).
In 1980, Sharp also began his major labour of love: Inner City Books, still the world's only publishing house dealing exclusively with the work of Jungian analysts. Sharp's first publication was his diploma thesis, The Secret Raven: Conflict and Transformation in the Life of Franz Kafka. Many others followed, including multiple publications by analysts such as Marion Woodman, Edward F. Edinger, James Hollis and J. Gary Sparks, and especially Marie-Louise von Franz, who graciously agreed to act as honorary patron of Inner City Books.
Today, in 2015, Sharp's enterprise has enjoyed significant success, selling millions of books with translations into approximately a dozen languages.
Sharp himself is the author of more than 30 titles, mainly designed to introduce and explain Jungian concepts to lay audiences. Perhaps his best known books are Personality Types: Jung's Model of Typology {1987}, The Survival Papers: Anatomy of a Midlife Crisis {1988}, and Digesting Jung: Food for the Journey {2001}. {Personality Types and Digesting Jung are available as free eBooks on Inner City Books' website.}
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 14, 2019
I really liked this book. Sharp has a great approach to introducing Jung to new readers, while at the same time giving depth, insight and perhaps a new perspective to those familiar with Jung. What is personality? Soul? Individuation? All of us will likely have a different idea about them, and in some cases even significantly different. Sharp presents these ideas while on a vacation with his partner (Rachel) and daughter, a Jungian friend, and the curious Jungian analyst and genuine eccentric (personality?) Adam Brillig, as well as Brillig's assistant.
This book came into the lives of my new (2018) partner and me with excellent timing: we are both working on letting go of the 'anti-personality' and 'soul' destroying effects of co-dependency. Recently we began the process of withdrawing our mutual projections and discovering who we are, really. OMG, that is a difficult process at times! And the descriptions and events described by Sharp are perfectly timed, funny and on point. And for us this is a read aloud book. My partner is relatively new to English, and reading it out loud is an exercise in English for us both. And, unexpectedly, that slowness allowed it to be more richly experienced because slowing down for Who Am I, Really felt perfect, given that it is set on a remote Ontario island and because of the depth of the ideas told through dialogue and conversation.
Sharp entered the holiday as Brillig's guest in Brillig's cottage on Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron with the quasi-clear intention for it to be a kind of extended analytical session. Sharp had been struggling with vague and unclear discontent in his life. Was it time to quit his analytical practice, stop writing, learn Swahili? Or maybe 'I could open the lid on the Pandora's box of my unlived life. Now wouldn't that be fun (p.20).' From experience he recognized that something was moiling in his unconscious that wanted to be expressed, likely through some kind of life-change in attitude and, most importantly, expanded awareness of his greater self's presence in his life, perhaps the expansion of 'soul' in his experience of the physical world.
We see Brillig move deftly around the challenge of male/female psychological differences under the piercing gaze of Rachel. He managed to keep his skin. Barely. I enjoyed his excoriation of formal education for deliberately/unconsciously(?) creating the opposite of individuals:
This book came into the lives of my new (2018) partner and me with excellent timing: we are both working on letting go of the 'anti-personality' and 'soul' destroying effects of co-dependency. Recently we began the process of withdrawing our mutual projections and discovering who we are, really. OMG, that is a difficult process at times! And the descriptions and events described by Sharp are perfectly timed, funny and on point. And for us this is a read aloud book. My partner is relatively new to English, and reading it out loud is an exercise in English for us both. And, unexpectedly, that slowness allowed it to be more richly experienced because slowing down for Who Am I, Really felt perfect, given that it is set on a remote Ontario island and because of the depth of the ideas told through dialogue and conversation.
Sharp entered the holiday as Brillig's guest in Brillig's cottage on Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron with the quasi-clear intention for it to be a kind of extended analytical session. Sharp had been struggling with vague and unclear discontent in his life. Was it time to quit his analytical practice, stop writing, learn Swahili? Or maybe 'I could open the lid on the Pandora's box of my unlived life. Now wouldn't that be fun (p.20).' From experience he recognized that something was moiling in his unconscious that wanted to be expressed, likely through some kind of life-change in attitude and, most importantly, expanded awareness of his greater self's presence in his life, perhaps the expansion of 'soul' in his experience of the physical world.
I don't think of Jungian psychology as a religion, but I know I owe my life to it. Once upon a time I was on my knees. After a few years of analysis I could stand on two feet, more or less erect. That experience has coloured my life. If someone were to ask, I'd be hard pressed to differentiate my single-minded zeal for Jung from the religious fervor that characterizes a born-again Christian, or any other evangelical for that matter. I'm not happy with this comparison, but there you are (p19-20).What about Brillig, the host and retired analyst?
There have been many in my life, both men and women, who did not like me. I don't wonder why. I was selfish, opinionated and mean spirited. I dare say I still am. Perhaps the only difference now is that I know it (p9).And in his eighties he takes delight in standing on his head. (A more detailed and elaborate introduction to Brillig is found in Sharp's fun and interesting Chicken Little: The Inside Story (A Jungian Romance), where we learn that 'Ms. Little personified an archetypal motif, [and has a] close psychological link with the Sumerian goddess Inanna' (p19).)
Brillig limped over to rummage in a trunk in the corner. Even with my inferior intuition I had a good idea what he was after. Adam is the only person I know, besides myself, who travels with a complete set of Jung’s Collected Works (p32).This brings a smile to my face, as the ‘basic’ collected works is 20 volumes. What does it say about Sharp? Brillig?
We see Brillig move deftly around the challenge of male/female psychological differences under the piercing gaze of Rachel. He managed to keep his skin. Barely. I enjoyed his excoriation of formal education for deliberately/unconsciously(?) creating the opposite of individuals:
’Our education system is oriented to the child, but who is to educate the educator? What of the child, the primitive, within the [unconscious] grown-up? … Our education system,’ said Adam, ‘suffers from a one-sided approach to the child who is to be educated, and from an equally one-sided lack of emphasis on the character of the educator. People like to speak of training the child’s personality. Parents for the most part are incompetent. As often as not they’re half children themselves and will always remain so. This is no secret; it’s so well known that we expect great things of trained professionals, heaven help us, self-styled experts stuffed full of soulless psychology and ill-assorted views on what constitutes personality.This is a very well written, fun, and powerful book. Thank you, Daryl Sharp. It has helped me. Helped us. And is worth a re-read and I have since finishing it looked at it from time to time.
‘I dare say you’ve seen them, posturing in halls of learning, pontificating in print and on TV — shallow-pates, inflated peacocks more interested in showing off what they know than in caring for the young. They are solidly convinced of their competence and feel grown up. They are no more nor less than what you see, living proof that people really do exist who believe they’re what they pretend to be. Woe betide if they were ever to doubt themselves; uncertainty would cripple them, undermine their authority. The truth, by and large, is that they suffer from the same defective education as their hapless young charges, and have just as little personality (p.32-3)
February 19, 2017
I did learn some new stuff in the chapters about the mana personality that I found helpful.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews