Messy Self

The Messy Self challenges the idea -- and the ideal -- of a coherent harmonious self. Taken together the essays illustrate how a flourishing self is inevitably divided ambivalent fractured messy -- and how the self triumphs through disorder. Written in accessible language by award-winning writers and scholars the book offers a diversity of perspectives on the complexities of the self. With chapters on creativity love self-understanding self-deception identity responsibility and well-being The Messy Self gives a range of voices to the ordinary and extraordinary divisions fragmentations and uncertainties that mark our everyday experience.