The Absent Father Effect on Daughters

“Truly something new and original on the daughter-father connection. Schwartz explains how and why daughters remain enmeshed with fathers whom, for whatever reason, have been less than good-enough. There is no demonization; rather, an exquisite compassion shines through. Whilst she writes as a clinician – and a really good one, as her account of working with dreams shows – Schwartz offers something that, by definition really, applies to every woman and the majority of men who will read it.” – Andrew Samuels, author of The Plural Psyche: Personality, Morality and the Father and editor of The Father: Contemporary Jungian Perspectives

“How do you have an incest fantasy about someone who isn’t there; or if they are, they terrify? How do you mourn the loss of someone you never knew, of a relationship you never had? Drawing on her life’s work as a clinician, the author deftly goes to the heart of trauma in the father-daughter relationship: showing how connecting to the archetypal father and collective experience a healing can begin.” – Dale Mathers, Jungian analyst, UK

“Susan Schwartz has written a much-needed book about fathers and daughters, one that addresses the psychic damage of the ‘emotionally absent and deadened father’, which ‘affects a daughter’s body, mind and soul’. With compassion, wisdom and a Jungian theoretical and clinical understanding of the psyche, Schwartz places this psychological dilemma in a wider context of psychoanalysis and the depth psychologies. Her clinical examples are apt and her passionate encouragement for us to understand this issue is inspiring.” – Margaret Klenck, MDiv, LP, Jungian analyst and past president of the Jungian Psychoanalytic Association, New York, USA

'Truly something new and original on the daughter-father connection. Schwartz explains how and why daughters remain enmeshed with fathers whom, for whatever reason, have been less than good-enough. There is no demonization; rather, an exquisite compassion shines through. Whilst she writes as a clinician – and a really good one, as her account of working with dreams shows – Schwartz offers something that, by definition really, applies to every woman and the majority of men who will read it.' – Andrew Samuels, author of The Plural Psyche: Personality, Morality and the Father and editor of The Father: Contemporary Jungian Perspectives

'How do you have an incest fantasy about someone who isn’t there; or if they are, they terrify? How do you mourn the loss of someone you never knew, of a relationship you never had? Drawing on her life’s work as a clinician, the author deftly goes to the heart of trauma in the father-daughter relationship: showing how connecting to the archetypal father and collective experience a healing can begin.' – Dale Mathers, Jungian analyst, UK

'Susan Schwartz has written a much-needed book about fathers and daughters, one that addresses the psychic damage of the "emotionally absent and deadened father", which "affects a daughter’s body, mind and soul". With compassion, wisdom and a Jungian theoretical and clinical understanding of the psyche, Schwartz places this psychological dilemma in a wider context of psychoanalysis and the depth psychologies. Her clinical examples are apt and her passionate encouragement for us to understand this issue is inspiring.' – Margaret Klenck, MDiv, LP, Jungian analyst and past president of the Jungian Psychoanalytic Association, New York, USA