Love comes from parents, and injuries often come from parents. And such love and hurt will be inherited by children and passed on to the next generation.
In The fetters of Motherly Love, the author finds a unique angle to deeply analyze the complicated psychological state in the mother-daughter relationship and how to heal the trauma caused by the mother. The article is plain and warm, but it is sympathetic. The book lists a large number of daughters' voices, which can help them rebuild a healthy life and also play an inspiring role.
The author of "The fetters of Motherly Love" is Dr. Karel McBride, an American registered marriage and family therapist. He has 28 years of practical experience in psychological counseling and is an expert in treating family problems. In recent ten years, Dr. McBride has been mainly engaged in the research on the influence of narcissistic parents on their children, and has successfully solved many such cases. Dr. McBride also has rich experience in trauma, sex, divorce, abuse, domestic violence, divorce, family reorganization, marriage and family therapy. She is good at EMDR trauma therapy and individual adaptation therapy involving anxiety, depression and life transition.
Dr. Monica Remirez Buster, the author of "Getting Your Life Back: A Complete Guide to Depression Treatment", said that Dr. mcbride grasped the pain of women raised by narcissistic mothers, and commented that the concise use of "the bondage of maternal love" could lead women to get rid of the trap of seeking possibilities and proving their self-worth, and showed how these characteristics of mothers shaped women's views on themselves, the world and interpersonal relationships through cases.
Dr Renee Rishik, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, commented on Dr mcbride's in-depth description of various aspects of narcissism. The fetters of maternal love is simple and practical, and its structure is arranged according to the treatment methods. Anyone who is surrounded by narcissists should read this book.
Wang Xuefu, founder of Haotu Parent Club, a senior psychologist, strongly recommends all mothers to read the book "The fetters of Motherly Love", which is a book about the psychological problems faced by daughters with narcissistic mothers when they grow up and how to cure them.
Dr. McBride is a therapist, and she is also the daughter of a narcissistic mother, a woman who has experienced self-healing. This book truly reflects her own life experience and treatment experience.
This book is easy to read. There are many cases. What the author wants to express is that in the cases, we can see what the owners of the cases are like and what their mothers are like. Since childhood, my mother's love is the greatest in the world. Every kindergarten child can sing the song "Only a mother is good in the world", but the book "The fetters of maternal love" is about all kinds of harm that mothers bring to children.
This book is divided into three parts, which also corresponds to the author's psychotherapy steps.
The first part: Find the problem and explain maternal narcissism.
This book is mainly about the influence of narcissistic mothers on their children. Some narcissistic mothers described by the author will also have such problems when they are not narcissistic mothers. Sometimes you find yourself troubled by some inexplicable emotions? "I am not good enough. My value depends on what I do, not who I am. I don't deserve to be loved. " After hearing these self-denying messages for a long time, you will suffer a lot of anxiety and distress. Frequent self-denial creates an extremely sensitive atmosphere in your mind, which makes you feel insecure, lacking self-confidence and self-consciousness. If you hear someone talking about something, you may think that they are talking about you specifically or against you, but in fact there is no such phenomenon at all, but you believe that others must be talking about it. If you often encounter this situation, it may be that your mother once asked too much of you, or that she is a narcissistic mother.
What kind of mother is narcissistic? In this part, the author describes in detail the performance of mother's narcissism.
Narcissism comes from the story of Narcissus in Greek mythology. Narcissus was handsome, arrogant and selfish-he fell in love with his appearance. He was not interested in others, only fascinated by his own reflection in the water, and finally watched his own shadow languish and die. In everyday language, narcissism refers to being arrogant and paying too much attention to yourself.
This part lists nine characteristics of narcissism and its corresponding ways and cases in the interaction between mother and daughter. Here are three kinds.
The first narcissistic mother has an unrealistic understanding of her importance, such as exaggerating her achievements, talents and expertise to make herself look superior. This kind of mother only talks about herself and things related to herself, and never asks her daughter what she thinks. Sally doesn't like to introduce others to her mother, because her mother will keep saying that she works as a volunteer in children's hospital and writes prescriptions for others as if she were a doctor. Judging from what she said, she has saved many lives.
The second narcissistic mother focuses on endless fantasies about success, power, talent, beauty and ideal love. This kind of mother believes that her domestic work will bring her extensive praise through the strength of those prestigious customers. Mary's mother often talks about her "important" clients, how they depend on her, how they praise her, and how she believes that she will be hired by one of the film crews soon.
The third narcissistic mother needs to be idolized. Such a mother wants you to praise, appreciate and compliment everything she has done to you. Jane's mother only goes to watch her grandson's football game occasionally, but she can't wait. I hope Jane's family will thank her for sacrificing her time. She always mentions "everything I have done for your children!" " "
Narcissistic mothers lack sympathy and the ability to express love. Their love life is superficial, and their life is visual-they only care about what things look like in the eyes of others.
Without the sympathy and love of the mother, the daughter will lack real emotional ties, thus feeling that something is missing and her basic emotional needs cannot be met.
In this part, the author puts forward many questionnaires related to narcissistic traits, and judges whether your mother has narcissistic tendencies through these descriptions.
In the study of mother's narcissism, the author distinguishes 10 kinds of mother-daughter relationship problems when the mother has narcissistic characteristics. The author calls this 10 mother-daughter interaction relationship related to maternal narcissism "10 sting", and lists three common situations here, which may not be unique to narcissistic mothers, but may also happen to non-narcissistic mothers.
The first sting is that you find yourself always wanting love, attention or recognition, but you can never please your mother.
Jennifer said that she always tried to please her mother. When she was a child, she found her mother holding a beautiful coin purse for a long time in a department store. She knew that her mother wanted it very much. She is only 8 years old, and her coin purse is very expensive, but she vowed to let her mother get it. She saved lunch money at school for several weeks until she saved enough money. I bought that luxurious coin purse for my mother as a Christmas surprise. But when she gave this gift to her mother, she expected her mother's reaction to the gift. As a result, she almost collapsed. Her mother threw her coin purse across the room and screamed, "I don't want a thief's gift!" " "
The second sting, your mother has no sympathy. Lack of sympathy is a sign of a narcissistic mother. When a daughter grows up with an unsympathetic mother, she will feel unimportant and insignificant. Whether they are little girls, big girls or adult women, they often stop talking about themselves or simply give up regulating their emotions.
Alice is worried about divorce, but her mother keeps asking for details. She would ask Alice, "Whose house is it?" How's the custody thing going? Which lawyer did you hire? In fact, when Alice wanted to talk to her mother about the feelings of divorce, her mother had no problem. She will change the subject and ask Alice how much alimony she intends to ask. Mother didn't realize Alice's emotional pain, and Alice felt insignificant in front of her mother. Alice kept asking herself, "What about my feelings? Am I not important? "
The third sting is that you have no boundaries and no privacy in front of your mother. Emotional alienation from mother will have a great influence on children's psychological growth. But narcissistic mothers don't allow their children to become independent individuals. On the contrary, the daughter meets her mother's needs and wishes. This brought a serious problem to her daughter. Her family life has no boundaries and privacy. Mom tells her everything, whether it's appropriate or not-and tells others about her daughter, no matter how embarrassing. Narcissistic mothers usually think that there is nothing wrong with the healthy growth of their daughters. For the mother, the child is only an accessory.
When Cheryl's high school classmates found her parents through the phone book and contacted her again, her mother answered the phone and talked with her for a long time. Her mother boasted to her classmates that Cheryl had become a doctor and opened her own clinic, and told all kinds of disgraceful details about her lovelorn love. When Cheryl was finally able to talk to her classmates, they first asked about her love relationship, which made her feel ashamed and embarrassed.
In addition to Ten Stings, there are six narcissistic mothers, all of whom are on the continuum from hands-on to absent-mindedness, which the author calls "six faces". When you think of them, please remember that your mother may be one type or a mixture of several types. In addition, hands-on and absent-minded mothers may be intertwined in any of them.
The second part: mainly talks about how narcissistic mothers affect all aspects of their daughters' lives.
The daughter of a narcissistic mother absorbed the idea that "my value is because of what I have done, not because of who I am". When we grow up, this powerful creed will make us behave in two completely different ways: high achievement motivation and self-destruction. The daughter of the high city variant model is Mary Marville (the heroine in the comic book). When they blow a whirlwind of success, they want to prove to their mother and the world how good they are.
Rosa is a lovely but sexy woman. No matter which team she is on, she always does more than she should. She explained: "I must try to prove that I didn't live in vain-I must work, work and work again."
If you are highly motivated and are pursuing your chosen life dream, and you can affirm yourself and take good care of yourself in the process, then you have done well.
Let's look at the daughter who gave up on herself. Some characteristics of this type are:
Give up easily.
Paralyze pain with various addictions.
I can't extricate myself from the lifestyle that I destroyed.
The achievement level is very low.
Tallinn in the case is always cautious. She can rarely cite an example of taking risks in order to get what she wants as an adult. Because of the concept of "never satisfied", I became a person with low achievement, and the fear of failure made me unwilling to do my best. If I stay in the middle, I won't have to face failure. I have many great ideas and inspirations, but they are always my dreams, not my goals. I thought, oh, it might be great to do it, but I won't do it. I may not be able to do it. "
Why do some daughters become self-motivated when they grow up, while others become self-destructive? In most cases, there has always been a special role in the life with high achievement motivation, which may be grandma, menstruation, father or his relatives. They can help her build positive thoughts and offset and deal with the negative thoughts she got from her mother. This special person is usually kind, compassionate and caring. Self-destructive life often lacks such a person, even if there is, the time together is enough to change the situation. When normal emotional problems are not solved, she will give up or paralyze herself through depression, drug abuse, alcoholism or drug abuse. What is worrying is that this kind of maternal love will be passed on to her daughter with her birth and passed down from generation to generation. So how to solve these problems? In the third part, there is a tailor-made rehabilitation plan for the daughter of narcissistic mother.
Part III: Ending inheritance and providing healing methods.
Through healing, narcissistic loving mothers and daughters can change this twisted maternal love passed down from generation to generation and improve the relationship for their children and grandchildren.
Knowing the influence of your mother's behavior on you, you can gradually heal your pain through the following steps.
According to the mother's shortcomings, I feel the sadness brought by not having an ideal mother.
Psychologically separate yourself from your mother and turn your mother's idea of eliminating hemorrhoids into a positive idea.
Develop and accept your own personality, experiences and desires.
Get along with your mother in a new and healthy way.
Try to discover your narcissism and avoid passing it on to the next generation.
Three steps of rehabilitation:
The first step is to understand the problem, diagnose the problem and collect the background information of the problem. This step applies to any emotional or psychological problems that you may face in your life. This is also the goal of therapists' joint efforts in the early stage of treatment.
The second step is to deal with the related emotions caused by the problem. As the daughter of a narcissistic mother, your feelings are often not recognized and confirmed. This step can help you learn to experience these things called "emotions". Speaking and doing are completely different in experiencing emotions. "Experience" means talking about trauma. Experiencing emotions is the only way to release pain from the body.
The third step is "reconstruction", which is a psychotherapy term, referring to using another set of lenses or a new way to look at the problem. This is the more interesting part of the treatment. You start to look at things in a new way and gradually get rid of the trauma left by your narcissistic mother. The decision you make for yourself at this time is completely different from when you feel that you are a victim. You begin to discover your true feelings, values and beliefs, find your true self and make it work in your own way.
This book is divided into three parts, corresponding to the steps of psychotherapy. Firstly, it explains what kind of mother is a narcissistic mother, then explains what kind of influence narcissistic mother has brought to her daughter, and finally gives a detailed cure.
Through this book, you can experience the pain of the old times and see the dawn of getting rid of the past and becoming your true self. You have also opened your heart and prepared for a new and fearless way of thinking and living. You know how to express your feelings and needs directly and clearly, get rid of unrealistic expectations, act according to your own values and follow your true feelings.