Mothers Who Can't Love
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15
Ratings2
Average rating4
With Mothers Who Can't Love: A Healing Guide for Daughters, Susan Forward, Ph.D., author of the smash #1 bestseller Toxic Parents, offers a powerful look at the devastating impact unloving mothers have on their daughters—and provides clear, effective techniques for overcoming that painful legacy. In more than 35 years as a therapist, Forward has worked with large numbers of women struggling to escape the emotional damage inflicted by the women who raised them. Subjected to years of criticism, competition, role-reversal, smothering control, emotional neglect and abuse, these women are plagued by anxiety and depression, relationship problems, lack of confidence, and difficulties with trust. They doubt their worth, and even their ability to love. Forward examines the Narcissistic Mother, the Competitive Mother, the Overly Enmeshed mother, the Control Freak, Mothers who need Mothering, and mothers who abuse or fail to protect their daughters from abuse. Filled with compelling case histories, Mothers Who Can’t Love outlines the self-help techniques Forward has developed to transform the lives of her clients, showing women how to overcome the pain of childhood and how to act in their own best interests. Warm and compassionate, Mothers Who Can’t Love offers daughters the emotional support and tools they need to heal themselves and rebuild their confidence and self-respect.
Reviews with the most likes.
A follow up to Toxic Parents, focusing especially on five types of toxic (unloving) mothers and their effect on daughters, followed by advice on how daughters can change this dysfunctional relationship, or decide to leave if it can't be salvaged with their own integrity intact. It was not very clear what was particular about the mother-daughter relationship vs. the general parent-child relationship, but that didn't matter for my purposes. I find Forward's approach helpful as a general outline, although a bit narrow and harsh. Good to complement with some other books like It Didn't Start With You, or Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, which go more into the general family dynamic that evolves such bizarre behavior.
Not as good as Toxic Parents, but some nuggets of truth picked up. I skipped over the self-help workbook stuff (I'm not gonna burn paper or stuff balloons). The level of narcissism I experienced was not as severe, but still traumatic. I would recommend this to women who are exploring the effects of their abusive or judgemental mothers on their present (or past!) lives.
