The Absent Father Effect on Daughters

This book investigates the impact of absent and inadequate fathers on the lives and psyches of their daughters through the perspective of Jungian analytical psychology. It tells the stories of daughters who describe the insecurity of self, the splintering and disintegration of the personality, and the silencing of voice.

Auteur

Susan E. Schwartz is a Jungian analyst and clinical psychologist in Arizona, USA. As a member of the International Association of Analytical Psychology she has taught and presented at conferences and workshops in the United States and worldwide. She has several articles and book chapters on these aspects of Jungian psychology. Her website is www.susanschwartzphd.com.

Texte du rabat

The Absent Father Effect on Daughters investigates the impact of absent - physically or emotionally - and inadequate fathers on the lives and psyches of their daughters through the perspective of Jungian analytical psychology. This book tells the stories of daughters who describe the insecurity of self, the splintering and disintegration of the personality, and the silencing of voice.

Issues of fathers and daughters reach to the intra-psychic depths and archetypal roots, to issues of self and culture, both personal and collective. Susan E. Schwartz illustrates the maladies and disappointments of daughters who lack a father figure and incorporates clinical examples describing how daughters can break out of idealizations, betrayals, abandonments and losses to move towards repair and renewal. The book takes an interdisciplinary approach, expanding and elucidating Jungian concepts through dreams, personal stories, fairy tales and the poetry of Sylvia Plath, along with psychoanalytic theory, including Andre Green's 'dead father effect' and Julia Kristeva's theories on women and the body as abject.

Examining daughters both personally and collectively affected by the lack of a father, The Absent Father Effect on Daughters is highly relevant for those wanting to understand the complex dynamics of daughters and fathers to become their authentic selves. It will be essential reading for anyone seeking understanding, analytical and depth psychologists, other therapy professionals, academics and students with Jungian and post-Jungian interests.

Contenu

Acknowledgements

Credits

Introduction

1. The Parallax

2. Loss and Longing

3. Father Desire, Father Wounds

4. Mirroring in the Dead Father Effect

5. Bad Dad - Negative Father Complex

6. Father Archetypal Dynamics, Symbols and Images

7. Who Is She Really? The 'As-If' Personality

8. The Dialogue of Therapy

9. If He Loves Her, Where Is He?

10. Idealisation of Father - A Tomb of Illusion

11. Do You Want to be 'Daddy's Girl'?

12. Behind the Mask and the Glitter - A Narcissistic Response

13. The Body in Shadow

14. Sylvia Plath's 'Daddy'

15. Filling the Absence

Index