This self-help book ‘Daughters, How to Untangle Yourself from Your Mother’ by Julia Vaughan Smith is extremely insightful – even if you don’t necessarily need to read a book like this. It packs quite the punch and can make you take a step back, reflect and understand lots of different situations from your own childhood.
AD – Please note this book was gifted, but all views are my own.
I know this self-coaching book isn’t for everyone, and particularly for those women who haven’t necessarily had a difficult relationship with their mother, but it does help to understand how patterns or behaviours formed.
The book explores different factors that influence relationships, and what that means in adulthood, moving forward in life and also the friendship that can often stem between a mother and daughter in later life. It does include the challenges of being raised by negative, narcissistic, distant, smothering and dependent mothers, and looks at how they may have become like this. Mothers are daughters too after all – we can’t forget this – where does the negative behaviour come from?
I didn’t read the book and blame my mother for things that have happened in our relationship, but I understood why and how some reactions or behaviours were formed. It isn’t a book that points the finger or blames mothers or daughters, but takes a compassionate and non-judgemental approach to the hard topic.
Although this isn’t for everyone – it is a book that I think many psychologists will and should have on their book shelves, and will perhaps offer some guidance, hope or support to daughters that may wish to explore their own mother/daughter relationship a little deeper.
Available to purchase from Amazon
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