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

Susan E. Schwartz is a Jungian analyst based in the USA. As a member of the International Association of Analytical Psychology she has taught and presented at conferences and workshops in the United States and worldwide. She has several articles and book chapters on these aspects of Jungian psychology.