The Emotionally Absent Mother: A Guide to Self-Healing and Getting the Love You Missed Paperback – September 14, 2010

I have always carried with me the feeling that I grew up without a mother, even though I had a mother. My mother was physically present (she even stayed at home and did not work most of the years of my childhood) and certainly not a malicious person by any stretch of the imagination. So this was a crazy feeling to carry around with me as an adult. This book confirmed for me that I am in fact not crazy to feel this way, and explained very clearly how and why many daughters enter adulthood with the feeling of being motherless or under-mothered, how this affects them in their adult life, and finally gives very practical advice for how to recover.This books is clear, well-written, nuanced, and organized. In chapter two, The Many Faces of the Good Mother, it provides a clear, balanced picture of what it looks like when a mother is meeting her child's needs fully (not perfectly!). Other recovery books have helped me to see that abandonment and neglect exist on a spectrum (i.e. just because you weren't left as a baby on someone's doorstep doesn't mean you weren't abandoned on some level as a child). This book helped me to refine my understanding even further and hone in on the specific holes that I experienced in my relationship with my mother--holes that are still affecting how I function as an adult, and how I function as a mother myself. It isn't about blame or resentment, but about having clarity and taking responsibility for your needs so that you can move on. The book is very affirming in telling the reader: if it is still bothering you, then it is still bothering you. It's not over and done with until you feel finished with it. This book is written to help you move on so that you can think about other things.I found some (not all) of the recovery exercises and suggestions to be a little on the cheesy side, but as I'm by now a seasoned reader of self-help books, I have developed a high tolerance for this kind of thing. I'm sure that different readers will take what is useful for them. As long as the book can benefit me hugely overall I don't mind if it throws out a few suggestions that I'm not crazy about. I definitely rate this book as a very important one in my overall journey in recovery because I firmly believe that there are very important issues specific to the mother-daughter relationship that need to be handled separately. Finally someone did (very gracefully, I might add), and I am really grateful! The world desperately needs its "good enough" mothers, and this book is one good tool for finding your way back to what that means when it was not modeled for you. Really, what could be more important?

This book is simply suberb. I consider that it stands head and shoulders over a lot of other self-help books for people struggling to come to terms with childhoods that involved neglect and abuse. I have never read a self-help book that had no useful suggestions at all, but on the other hand, until I read this book, I have never encountered a book that is so comprehensive and has such a solid foundation in research.I do not share the view of other reviewers that the book is too academic. Serious maternal neglect, for those affected by it, is an elusive subject: how do you assess the impact of something that is essentially a void, on your life? It's like an unknown territory, and in order to know where you are, you'll want a proper ordnance survey map (the various chapters that summarise the research) and navigational tools (the author's questions to the reader), and not the equivalent of some vague directions someone scribbled on the back of an envelope. The author's academic framework is attachment theory, as it has been developed in the past five decades, and she references her theoretical statements extensively. I found this very reassuring to know I am not being sold snake oil or platitudes.It is true that there are not many practical exercises in the book, but then, I would say the subject is too complex, and reaches too deeply into the lives of those affected by it, to make that practical or even ethical. But the author does suggest a large variety of both therapeutic approaches and self-care approaches that can be incorporated into daily life, with or without accompanying therapy, which should help to ease the burden for everyone who is living with the painful heritage of serious maternal neglect.

I discovered this book a couple of years ago, and it has had a big impact on my life. Reading it was an eye- and heart-opening experience for more reasons than I can count. I'll share two of them here.Early on in the book, the author offers a bird's eye view of the essential archetypal roles a mother plays: mother as Source, as Place of Attachment, as First Responder, as Modulator, as Nurturer, as Mirror, as Cheerleader, as Mentor, as Protector, as Home Base. She then goes on to explain what each of these role actually involves. It was comforting to understand what my mother actually did superbly well (she was a phenomenal cheerleader). And it was also helpful to discover what she was not able to provide, and which I had not even known to look for. Suddenly I had a clear map of the developmental gaps in my life, as well as a way of noticing who had already showed up along the way to fill them. It has helped me to appreciate how blessed I have been with the kind of motherly love and support I have received from so many women (and some men) over the years.Another one of the many things I love about the book is the list of essential "Good mother" messages. I like to read and re-read them. I find them deeply healing.

As a man going through the process of healing childhood trauma this book has given me so much perspective on my mother wounds. I honestly thought this book wouldn’t add much value, but I continuously found my self having to journal as I read because many memories would come up as I was reading. I would highly recommend this along with journaling.