Books: Imperfect Love in "My Name is Lucy Barton"

The novel, My Name is Lucy Barton, by Elizabeth Strout, is primarily about a mother-daughter relationship that is an "imperfect love" where so many emotions, including love, are unspoken.  Although her mother is unable to express her love directly in words, when Lucy most needs her as an adult, the mother demonstrates her love by her actions (see my articles: Mother-Daughter Relationships Over the Course of a Lifetime, Mother-Daughter Relationships: Letting Go of Resentments, and Getting Help in Mother-Daughter Therapy).

Imperfect Love in "My Name is Lucy Barton"

Lucy's Traumatic Childhood History
As young children, Lucy and her two siblings are raised in dire poverty in the rural town of Amgash, IL where the five of them live in her granduncle's garage with no heat or hot water, no TV and no other modern conveniences.

One of Lucy's earliest memories is of being cold in bed and her mother bringing her a hot water bottle so she can try to get warm.  She also remembers going hungry, and having only bread and molasses to eat as a child.

Aside from the financial poverty, there's also an emotional estrangement between members of this dysfunctional family--despite their close proximity living together in a small space in the garage (or maybe because of their physical proximity).  Even among Lucy and her siblings, there's no affection or closeness, as if they are suspicious of one another (see my article: Dynamics of Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families).

There is so much that is unspoken.  For instance, her father, who served in the military during World War II, suffers from what we now know is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). But neither the father nor the mother name it--possibly they didn't know what it was.  They also don't talk about his traumatic experiences.  Lucy thinks of her father's odd behavior as "the thing" because it remains unnamed and undefined.

It is only later, when Lucy brings her soon-to-be husband of German descent to meet that family that Lucy learns that her father is uncomfortable around Germans.  Her father is awkward and unable to look Lucy's fiance in the eye, but he never explains his discomfort.  During that same visit, when Lucy and her mother are alone, her mother scolds her for bringing a young man of German descent to their home because this upsets the father. But, of course, Lucy had no way of knowing that this would upset her father because her parents never discussed his discomfort with Germans.

Later in life, Lucy finds out that her father murdered two young, innocent, unarmed German civilians because they startled him.  She learns that not one day went by in her father's life when he wasn't haunted by this memory. So, in retrospect, Lucy realizes that when she brought her soon-to-be-husband to meet her parents, her father experienced it as if one of those young dead German men came back to haunt him.

As a child, Lucy also experiences her own trauma, including both parents' sudden impulses to hit Lucy and her siblings for no apparent reason.

One of the other ongoing traumas in her life is that, as a desperate form of "childcare," her parents regularly locked Lucy up in her father's truck while they were both out working, and she is trapped in the truck with a snake.  This results in a lifelong phobia of snakes or even hearing the word "snake."  The reader gets a visceral sense of how desperate and frightened Lucy felt trapped in the truck with no one within earshot to rescue her.

Due to their poverty and what others perceived as their oddness, Lucy and her siblings are ostracized and made fun of by the children at school.  Her classmates make fun of her for her clothing.  They also despise Lucy and her cousin for being hungry and dumpster diving for food.  And, since they have no TV and have never gone to the movies as children, they are also culturally ostracized from their classmates (see my article: Feeling Like an Outsider).

When Lucy and her siblings are children, the father humiliates Lucy's brother after the father discovers that the brother is secretly cross dressing in the mother's clothing.  The father forces his son to wear his mother's clothing and high heels in public to shame him while the father drives alongside him loudly demeaning him.

Later on in life, Lucy finds out from her mother that her brother, as an adult who remains home with the parents, sleeps with a neighbor's pigs the night before they are about to be slaughtered, and he reads children's books about a family who lives on the prairie.  No one knows why and no one asks the brother about his unspoken suffering (see my articles: The Role of the Family Scapegoat and Being the "Different One" in Your Family).

In her childhood, there are a couple of people in Lucy's life who are sympathetic.  One of them is the school janitor, Tommy, who allows Lucy to stay in an empty classroom to do her homework and to sleep in the warmth of the classroom.

Although Lucy is too shy to speak with Tommy, she recognizes that he is being kind to her by allowing her to stay in the classroom.  She remains there everyday, until she has to go home, because there is heat in the classroom, unlike where she lives in the garage.

Tommy's own poignant story is told in Ms. Strout's next book, Anything is Possible, and the reader develops a better understanding from that books about why he is as empathetic as he is towards Lucy.  He has his own tragic history, but he is also a resilient survivor.

Lucy and Her Mother Reconnect: An Imperfect Love
After she moves to New York City and she is married with two young daughters, Lucy is hospitalized for nine weeks with a mysterious infection.  While she is hospitalized, Lucy's husband arranges for her mother to come stay with her in the hospital.

After not seeing each other for years, there is an awkwardness and tension between Lucy and her mother, especially since the mother is unable to express her love for Lucy in words.  Also, from the mother's standpoint, there is no possibility of discussing all that is unresolved between them.  But, for Lucy, having her mother there--even just hearing her voice--is soothing.  Lucy knows that, in her own way, her mother loves her, and she becomes aware of how important her mother is to her.

Even though the mother is unable to tell Lucy in words that she loves her, just the fact that she got on a plane for the first time in her life, as frightened as she was by the experience, and stayed by Lucy's side for five days with little to no sleep, demonstrates how much she loves Lucy.

They spend most of their time talking about the people they know from their small town.  Her mother gossips about their neighbors, focusing on their unhappy marriages.  But she doesn't talk about Lucy's father and what must have been a difficult marriage for mother given the father's PTSD symptoms and their crushing poverty.

The reader gets the sense that, even though the mother is talking about other people's unhappy marriages, on an unconscious level, she is actually talking indirectly about her own unhappy marriage.

The mother also alludes cryptically to her own experience of feeling unsafe as a reason why she doesn't sleep well and prefers catnaps.  She alludes to a history of having to be vigilant.  But when Lucy asks her mother why she didn't feel safe, her mother doesn't respond, so it remains another unspoken mystery.

When Lucy is taken for a CT scan, her mother searches for Lucy in the hospital basement so that Lucy won't be alone.  Lucy knows that this was a big challenge for her mother.  Once again, there is an unspoken understanding between them that even if they're not telling each other "I love you," there is a lot of love between them.

Despite Lucy's mother's emotional support, she leaves very abruptly when Lucy's doctor tells them that Lucy might need an operation.  The mother never communicates why she feels the need to leave so quickly, but the reader senses that she is running from some unnamed fear that even she might not understand.  This saddens Lucy because she wants her mother to stay, especially if she will need surgery, but she understands that her mother is too frightened to stay.

Despite the unspoken love conveyed while Lucy is in the hospital, after her mother leaves, they go back to their usual emotional estrangement and speak only on holidays and birthdays. The reader senses that Lucy's mother cannot sustain the level of closeness they had when Lucy was in the hospital.

Throughout her stay in the hospital, Lucy likes to look out her window at the Chrysler building lit up at night as if she sees it is as a strong and sturdy beacon of hope that assures her.

Lucy and the Kindness of Strangers
As a result of her traumatic childhood experiences, Lucy develops a strong sense of empathy for other people's loneliness and trauma.  She intuits that she and they are kindred spirits.

Throughout her life, Lucy is drawn to lonely, traumatized people that she barely knows who are kind to her.  Most of these people are just passing through her life, but she recognizes and appreciates their kindness.  She relates to the quote by Blanche Dubois from A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers" and all that this implies about isolation and loneliness (see my article: Overcoming Loneliness and Social Isolation).

Of the people who are kind to her, there's the attending physician in the hospital who visits her every day including weekends.  Lucy finds out indirectly that the doctor lost his family during the Holocaust and that he carries this sadness with him.  Without words, he seems to intuitively understand Lucy.  And Lucy senses his sadness and loneliness.  She senses how much he cares about her.

There's also the kind neighbor in her building, who is a psychoanalyst, originally from France, who sees Lucy's artistic side.  When he learns that Lucy is writing, he tells her to be "ruthless" in her writing, which she doesn't understand at first.  They have an unspoken affection for each other, but Lucy doesn't know much about him.  After he dies from complications related to AIDS (this is the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s), she finds out that he was gay.  At that point, she understands the cause of his loneliness and isolation.

Lucy Discovers Her Voice in Her Writing
Lucy finds her voice in her writing.  Although she lacks confidence and tends to minimize her accomplishments, other people see the value of her work.  There's a writing teacher, who is a well-known New York City writer, who, just like Lucy, also suffers from PTSD.  She praises Lucy's writing and encourages her to continue writing.

Lucy seems to sense that she and these lonely, traumatized people are kindred souls.

Lucy's Sense of Hope and Resiliency
One of the amazing things about this character is that, despite her traumatic experiences, Lucy remains hopeful and resilient, in spite of her trauma.  She finds strength where she can, and she doesn't seem to feel victimized by her experiences.  She is also able to see the positive qualities in others, and she remains open to making connections with them (see my articles: Resilience: Bouncing Back From Life's Challenges, Overcoming Trauma and Developing Resilience, and Posttraumatic Growth: Developing a Greater Sense of Hope and Meaning in the Aftermath of Trauma).

I highly recommend this book.  Elizabeth Strout's characters are people you can relate to, and she is able to convey their mysterious inner worlds in a poetic way without sentimentality.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples, and I specialize in working with psychological trauma.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

See My Other Articles About Books:
Love and Longing in "Enigma Variations" by Andre Aciman
"Call Me By Your Name" - by Andre Aciman: Part 1: "Is It Better to Speak or to Die?"
"Call Me By Your Name" by Andre Aciman: The Concept of Living Parallel Lives
Denial and Illusions in "The Iceman Cometh" - by Eugene O'Neill
"Three Tall Women" - by Edward Albee
Reading Literature and the Positive Effect on the Brain
Books: "Tea With Winnicott" by Brett Khar

Mother-Daughter Relationships: Early Bonding

In my prior blog post, I discussed Life Stages in Mother-Daughter Relationships from infancy to middle age for daughters and later years for mothers:  Life Stages in Mother-Daughter Relationships. In today's blog post, I'll focus on the early stage of bonding between mothers and daughters.

Mother-Daughter Relationships: Early Bonding

Why is Early Bonding Important?
First, let me say that bonding between infants and parents is extremely important for the infant to grow up to be a healthy, well-related adult.

Even though I'm focusing on mothers and daughters in this blog post, it's important to understand that both parents need to bond with their babies, whether the babies are girls or boys. So, even though the focus is on mothers and daughters, it's understood that fathers need to bond with their children as well.

Bonding between mothers and infants is an intense attachment. When bonding is going well, not only is it gratifying to both mother and infant, but the infant begins to learn in her first intense relationship how to relate.

Mother-Daughter Relationships: Early Bonding

If the mother is responsive to the baby, all other things being equal, the baby will usually grow up with a sense of security and positive self esteem. How the mother responds to the baby affects the baby's social and cognitive development.

Bonding is a process that takes place over time. It doesn't have to be perfect--it just needs to be good enough.

Often, bonding takes place, without the mother even necessarily being aware of it, through the normal caregiving responses that she performs for the baby if the mother is also emotionally attuned and related to the baby.

An example of this is when a mother is changing a baby's diaper and she's talking lovingly to the baby at the same time. The baby often responds by smiling and cooing, which is gratifying to the mother, who responds even more lovingly to the baby. Under ordinary circumstances, this is a natural part of the mother-infant bonding process.

Babies respond to touching (skin-to-skin contact), which they find soothing. They also respond to their mother's voice and the mother's scent. Eye-to-eye contact, where the mother mirrors the baby's expressions and the baby attempts, even at an early age, to mimic the mother's expressions, is a very important aspect of bonding.

Breast feeding is another bonding experience between the mother and infant, as the infant learns to associate the mother with comfort, warmth, love and sustenance. All of these examples are powerful ways for mothers and infants to bond.

Secure and Insecure Attachment:
Most of the time, bonding is a pleasurable experience for mother and infant, and it tends to go well. But there are times when there are problems with bonding for a variety of reasons: mothers might be suffering with fatigue, depressive disorder, postpartum depression, medical issues or other problems that get in the way of their bonding with their infants.

 If there are problems during birth, babies might need to placed in intensive care. Under those circumstances, some mothers are put off by all of the equipment, and if they don't take the time and effort to bond, there can be serious consequences for the baby as well as their primary and other relationships later on.

In addition, aside from problems that the mother might have, the baby's temprement might affect the bonding process.

Attachment Theory:
In this blog post, there won't be time or space to go into all of the complexities of attachment theory. However, some basic concepts can be helpful in our discussion.

When we refer to attachment, we're referring to the quality of the bond between the infant and the caregiver.

Attachment theory was originally developed by John Bowlby (1907-1990), British psychiatrist, psychologist and psychoanalyst. His work was enhanced by his American student and eventual colleague, Mary Ainsworth (1913-1999) who observed mother-infant interactions in her infant research. Through her research, she identified four different types of attachment: secure, avoidant, ambivalent/resistant, and disorganized.

Before going describing the different types of attachment, I want to stress that just because an infant demonstrates a particular type of attachment, which might not be secure attachment, does not mean that this can never change. Scientists have discovered the remarkable plasticity of the brain in terms of people being able to make significant behavioral changes, even in old age.

Based on Ms. Ainsworth's research, secure attachment is optimal. When there is secure attachment, caregivers respond consistently and lovingly to the infants' needs most of the time. Studies have shown that about 65% of infants develop secure attachment.

Avoidant attachment in babies often occurs where the primary caregivers show little or no response to the babies' distress. These caregivers often discourage crying and want their babies to be emotionally "independent" beyond the babies' capacity. Due to these caregivers' lack of responsiveness, these babies often avoid emotional attachments and connections.

When babies show ambivalent/resistant attachment, the primary caregivers are often inconsistent, vacillating between being emotionally responsive and being neglectful or abusive. These babies are often insecure because they cannot rely on their primary caregivers.

Disorganized attachment usually occurs when primary caregivers are too intrusive or abusive with the infant. These infants are traumatized.

Consequences of Secure and Insecure Attachments:
Once again, I want to stress that an insecure attachment does not necessarily become that adult's inevitable destiny. So, what I'm about to say are generalizations about what has been found in research.

When bonding goes fairly well, as it does with 65% of infants, all other things being equal, these infants tend to grow up as secure adults. Of course, there are many other factors to take into account besides attachment, but for the sake of simplicity and brevity, let's just look at attachment and assume that everything else has gone reasonably well for these infants who grow up to be adults.

Generally, these adults, who experience secure attachment with their primary caregivers, tend to be able to trust in their adult relationships. They usually have healthy self esteem; they're empathetic towards others; they feel deserving of love, and they're able to form healthy adult relationships.

Infants who grow up with insecure attachment often have difficulty trusting. Self esteem is often impaired. They might also have a hard time understanding and being empathetic towards others. In addition, they often have difficulties forming healthy adult relationships.

We can already anticipate what the challenges might be in the mother-daughter relationships as well as other adults relationships for daughters who have developed insecure attachments as infants.

Getting Help in Therapy
These problems can be overcome and repaired in psychotherapy. Many people who didn't have secure attachment as infants overcome this problem and are able to form healthy adults relationships. I will explore this as well as the implications for mother-daughter relationships in future blog posts.

About Me
I am a New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, Somatic Experiencing therapist and EMDR therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

I have helped many clients to overcome problems in mother-daughter relationships.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Life Stages in Mother-Daughter Relationships

In a prior blog post, I wrote about Ambivalence and Codependence in Mother-Daughter Relationships. That blog post presented the complex nature of mother-daughter relationships when there are problems with enmeshment. At this point, I would like to return to the topic of mother-daughter relationships to step back and look at these relationships over the course of the various life stages that mothers and daughters go through.

Life Stages in Mother-Daughter Relationships

Mother-Daughter Relationships - Early Bonding:
There is no doubt that, in general, fathers are more involved with their children than they were a generation ago, which is encouraging. But the primary parental relationship for most girls and women remains the mother-daughter relationship.

During the 1940s and earlier, people believed that babies were born as blank screens, but we now know that from early infancy we're biologically "hard wired" for attachment. That means that infants seek warmth and comfort from Day One: the warmth and scent of her mother's skin, the comfort of her mother's breast, and the sound of her mother's voice. When bonding goes well between mother and infant, the baby feels a secure attachment to her mother. This secure attachment between mother and child makes it more likely, all other things being equal, that the child will develop healthy relationships later on in life.

Under optimal conditions during infancy, the baby and mother are also bonded through the mother's loving gaze. The baby sees herself in the mother's eyes and feels the mother's love. The mother, in turn, sees how comforted the baby feels being mirrored in the mother's eyes and this is comforting to the mother as well. This interaction provides a positive feedback loop between mother and child and reinforces this bond.

Mother and Daughter Relationships - From Early Years (18 months to age 5):
At around the age of 18-24 months, babies begin to learn to separate from their mothers for short periods of time. Margaret Mahler referred to the "separation/individuation" phase when, under optimal circumstances, babies learn that their mothers continue to exist even when they are out of sight. This is also the time when babies begin to assert some of their autonomy by saying, "No!" If the mother is patient and recognizes this as a normal stage of development, babies gradually outgrow this sometimes difficult stage.

From about the age of four or five, most daughters idealize their mothers. They often find their mothers to be attractive and glamorous. At this stage, many girls want to mimic their mothers by putting on the their mothers' makeup or playing dress-up with "mommy's clothes." They often think of their mothers as beautiful and all-knowing.

Some daughters have a hard time separating from their mothers when it's time to start school (this occurs with sons as well sometimes). It's their first time away from the security they feel with their mother to be in a new and strange environment with a stranger (the teacher) who is now in charge. Most of the time, young girls are able to make this adjustment, and the mother remains their primary attachment figure.

Mother-Daughter Relationships - During the Daughter's Adolescence:
While mothers are idealized when children are four or five years old, teenagers often see their mothers as being old fashioned or "out of it." This is another stage where children are learning to separate themselves emotionally from their mothers.

This stage can be bewildering to mothers who often say, "What happened to my relationship with my daughter?" This is a time when teens bond with their peer group, and a friend's advice or opinion is often valued more than a mother's.

Tension and conflict during this period of time can be managed if both mothers and daughters accept and respect each other rather than viewing each other as the enemy. Since they're the adults, mothers have a greater onus for being understanding and fostering good relationships with their daughters. However, daughters must also learn to be open and respectful towards their mothers. Mothers need to learn to allow their daughters an age-appropriate degree of autonomy, but mothers must also provide guidance and support while setting boundaries for their daughters. Daughters will often test these boundaries, but this is also a normal part of adolescence.

Mother-Daughter Relationships - Daughters in Their 20s and 30s:
During their 20s, daughters are no longer teenagers, but some of them, depending upon their level of maturity, might not feel like adults yet. Prior to the 1990s, many daughters were able to go out on their own and live independently after college because apartments were more affordable. Now, with fewer rent stabilized and moderate income housing, many daughters continue to live at home for longer periods of time, depending upon their parents for longer as compared to prior generations.

During their 20s, many daughters often realize that their mothers are fallible and they don't always have all of the answers. During this period, many of them are being challenged by career choices and choosing a mate. Often, they're learning how to distinguish themselves from their mothers while attempting to maintain a bond with them.

During their 30s, many daughters are starting to come into their own with regard to career and their own family. Under ideal circumstances, they are less emotionally and financially dependent on their mothers. They often realize that their ideas differ from their mothers with regard to certain values. At this point, if they are in committed relationships with a significant others, under optimal circumstances, daughters are learning to put their partners first. This can create tension in the mother-daughter relationship, unless mothers understand that this is a normal part of development.

Mother-Daughter Relationships - 40s and Beyond:
Although there are many sons who help to take care of their elderly mothers, traditionally, for better or worse, it has been the daughter's responsibility to take care of elderly parents. For many women, who are "sandwiched" between their own families and their parents, this can be very challenging. During this time, daughters and mothers start to come to terms with the fact that mothers are aging and have more years behind them than ahead. How well they deal with this is often dependent upon how well their relationship has developed until this point.

Life Stages in Mother-Daughter Relationships

This is also often a time when mothers and daughters let go of old resentments in light of the fact that mothers are elderly at this point and time might be short for reconciliation. Under most circumstances, daughters often develop a different perspective of what's important, especially if they now have their own children and they understand better what their mothers went through with them.

In future blog posts, I will continue to explore mother-daughter relationships.

About Me
I am a New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, Somatic Experiencing therapist, and EMDR therapist. I work with individuals and couples.

As a psychotherapist, I have helped many mothers and daughters, individually and together, to improve their relationships.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during regular business hours or email me.

Ambivalence and Codependence in the Mother-Daughter Relationship

The topic of conflict and ambivalence in the mother-daughter relationship is the subject of this article. One article in a blog cannot do justice to this topic but, hopefully, it can serve as a starting point for many similar articles and it will be thought provoking (see my articles: Healing Mother-Daughter Relationships and Letting Go of Resentments in Mother-Daughter Relationships).

Ambivalence and Codependence in Mother-Daughter Relationships

The complexity of the mother-daughter relationship is derived, in part, from the fact that mothers and daughters share a biological and often certain psychological factors. 

As such, mothers often see themselves in their infant daughters, at times, projecting their own unfulfilled hopes and dreams on their infant daughters. 

In turn, daughters learn to identify with their mothers. A certain amount of maternal idealizing is a normal part of a daughter's development. 

However, when the identification or idealization interferes with a daughter's psychological development, this often interferes with the normal separation and individuation process that is necessary for the daughter to mature into her own person.

Clinical Vignette:

The following vignette which, as always, represents a composite of numerous cases illustrates how ambivalence and codependence between a mother and daughter as well as an over identification by the daughter for the mother kept the daughter stuck and unable to develop into her own person without feeling like she was betraying her mother.

Donna:
When Donna began therapy, she was in her early 30s. She was already quite successful in her career. As she saw it at the time, her presenting problem was that she had a long history of problems in her romantic relationships with men. 

Her relationships always began well. However, as soon as the relationship became serious, Donna became extremely ambivalent about it and found some way to sabotage it. When she began therapy, she was in a one-year relationship with a man that she loved very much and who also loved her. She saw the potential for a good marriage with this man, but she was very frightened to make that commitment with him, and she could not understand why.

Donna's family history included her parents' divorce when she was five years old. Prior to that, she remembered a lot of arguing between her parents, who were not well suited for each other. After the divorce, the father remarried within a couple of years. However, Donna's mother sank into a depression and she began to drink heavily.

As an only child, Donna remembered feeling responsible for her mother's happiness. Her mother poured out her sorrows to Donna, and Donna did her best to try to make her mother happy by listening to her, trying to entertain her with funny stories from school, being an "A" student, and trying never to bother her mother with her own concerns. 

As a result, at a young age, Donna and her mother switched roles, and Donna became a parentified child. She learned to anticipate her mother's needs before her mother even expressed them. She even cleaned up her mother's mess when her mother got drunk and threw up around the house. For this, Donna's mother rewarded her by telling her what a wonderful daughter she was, and this made Donna feel good.

Donna's relationship with her mother continued in this way until Donna became a teenager, and she began to express a need to spend more time with her friends. Donna's mother never actually stopped Donna from going out with her friends, but when Donna got home, she often found her mother in an irritable, sullen state.

She never told Donna directly that she was unhappy that Donna was beginning to achieve a certain amount of independence that is a normal part of adolescence but, indirectly, she complained about how lonely she felt when Donna was out and how hard her life was as a single mother. 

This made Donna feel very guilty for leaving her mother alone and for going out and having a good time with her friends. At those times, Donna worked extra hard to get back into her mother's good graces. After a while, Donna's mother was appeased and, once again, she rewarded Donna by telling her that she was the best daughter that a mother could have.

At times, Donna turned down her friends' invitations to go out because she didn't want to leave her mother alone and unhappy. She also feared that her mother would drink more when Donna was out, which was often the case. At least if she was there, Donna thought, she could monitor her mother's alcohol intake and help her mother to go to bed when she was too drunk.

After her parents' divorce, Donna had virtually no contact with her father. She feared that her mother would be upset if she maintained a relationship with her father, so she ignored his phone calls and, after a while, he stopped calling.

During that time, dating boys was out of the question in Donna's mind. Her mother was very bitter about her own divorce and she would often tell Donna how awful men were. Donna was interested in a couple of boys at school, who also expressed an interest in her, but Donna felt that it would be a betrayal to her mother if she began dating boys. So, rather than dating, she stayed home with her mother and catered to her needs.

When it came time for Donna to apply for college, one of Donna's teachers, who had an intuitive sense of what was going on in Donna's home, encouraged Donna to go away to college. A part of Donna longed to be away and attend a college with an active campus life. However, a stronger part of Donna didn't want to leave her mother alone. So, she opted to go to a local college, even though other colleges offered her better opportunities and a chance for a full scholarship.

By the time Donna was a sophomore in college, she began to feel depressed and lonely. She didn't know why she was feeling this way, so she went to the student counseling center. With the help of her college counselor, Donna began to see that she was missing out on many of the social activities that other students were enjoying and that she also wanted to attend.

So, gradually, Donna became more social and, soon afterwards, she started dating, much to her mother's chagrin. By that point, Donna realized that she needed to have a social life of her own, but she continued to feel guilty and that, in some way, she was betraying her mother by spending less time with her and more time with her friends.

By the time she graduated, Donna was offered an excellent job opportunity in NYC that she knew she could not afford to pass up. With much ambivalence and guilt about leaving her mother, she moved to NYC to begin her new career. However, she called her mother several times a day to "check in" on her and to listen to her mother's problems. She also visited her mother frequently on weekends.

When Donna entered into her first serious relationship, she was wary of telling her mother. She feared that since her mother had such a low opinion of men, her mother would disapprove of her being in a relationship. 

When Donna finally summoned the courage to tell her mother, her mother acted as if she had not even heard her. She never expressed any curiosity about this man or even asked Donna how the relationship was going. This made Donna feel very sad and guilty--as if she was doing something wrong by having a life of her own and being in a relationship, as if she wasn't entitled to her own happiness.

Shortly after that, Donna began finding faults with her boyfriend and they started arguing. Within a few months, they were broken up. When Donna told her mother about the breakup, her mother responded by telling her to come home and spend time with her. Her mother seemed to have no recognition that Donna was heart broken.

This same pattern continued in most of Donna's relationships. She felt pulled between the man that she loved and a "loyalty" that she felt for her mother. By the time that Donna came to see me, she was miserable. She was also aware that she was ruining an otherwise wonderful relationship with a man that she really loved. But she didn't know how to stop engaging in this behavior.

We began by doing inner child work to help Donna understand and appreciate the root of her problems. Over time, she learned to have more compassion for herself when she was a child and as an adult. She also started to see how her own inner emotional conflict caused her to feel that she had to choose between her boyfriend and her mother.

With a lot of work in therapy, Donna started feeling more entitled to have a happy life and not to sacrifice her life for her mother. She also learned to see that her codependent relationship with her mother was not helping her mother or her. 

So, gradually, over time, she changed her behavior towards her mother. Rather than calling her mother several times a day, she called her once a week. Rather than spending hours on the phone listening to her mother's problems and trying to "fix" them, Donna encouraged her mother to get help.

Donna's mother did not respond well to this new change in Donna. After a few weeks of this, Donna's mother refused to talk to Donna and told her that she would talk to her when Donna "came to her senses again." 

This was a serious emotional challenge for Donna, and part of her wanted to revert back to her old behavior to "rescue" her mother. But, deep down, Donna realized that she needed to stick to what she knew was best for her and her relationship with her boyfriend. 

She also realized now that her mother would never get help for her alcoholism as long as Donna provided her with an emotional crutch. So, even though it was very difficult for her, Donna refrained from reverting back to her former dysfunctional way of relating to her mother.

After several months, Donna's relationship with her boyfriend improved substantially. Even though she missed her mother, Donna realized that she felt happier than she had ever felt and she finally felt entitled to her happiness. She also reconciled her relationship with her father.

About a year later, she received a call from her mother. Her mother told Donna that she had just completed a 28-day rehab and she wanted to reconcile her relationship with Donna. And, for the first time, she told Donna that she wanted to meet her boyfriend. This was the beginning of Donna and her mother having a healthy relationship together without much of the guilt, codependence, and ambivalence from the past.

Healthy Mother-Daughter Relationships
Even though this article focuses on ambivalence and codependence in mother-daughter relationships, I want to also say that there are many mothers and daughters who have healthy relationships. 

Healthy Mother-Daughter Relationships

Even mother-daughter relationships that begin with the sort of enmeshment, codependence and ambivalence that were involved with Donna's relationship with her mother often improve when one or, preferably both, people get psychological help.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you are part of an emotionally unhealthy mother-daughter dynamic and you want to establish a healthier relationship, you could benefit from attending psychotherapy with a licensed mental health professional who has expertise in this area.

About Me

I am a licensed psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, and EMDR therapist in New York City.

I work with individuals and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my web site: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Also, see Mother-Daughter Relationships Over the Course of a Life Time