My Mother, My Daughter, My Self

Dr. Jane Goldberg waited until her mid-forties before she experienced motherhood and, along with the passionate bond that she formed with her daughter, there came a professional curiosity: why is this relationship so fundamental? The author uses her own experiences as a daughter, as a mother of a newly-adopted baby, and as a psychoanalyst to explore an essential truth: that our relationships with our mothers affect our other significant love relationships, our values, our self-esteem, and our sense of satisfaction, often throughout the whole of our lives. She also uses the experiences of some of her patients, taken from her forty years as a practicing clinician, to provide further fascinating insights and illustration. The book addresses the complicated nature of mother-daughter relationships by acknowledging the oxymoronic nature of the relationship as both parties are simultaneously seeking individuality and closeness.The book is about maintaining intimacy with both closeness and separateness: we want both; we need both.