Demeter's Compromise: Separation, Loss, and Reconnection in Mothers with Daughters Entering Adulthood

abstract

Drawing on contemporary theory of female development that focuses on the dynamics of the mother/daughter relationship regarding issues of separation and individuation, this article examines the treatment of a middle aged mother as she navigates her way through her daughter's adolescence and early adulthood. Psychoanalytic object relations, psychoanalytic relational theory, and feminist theory serve to frame an understanding of the case material in terms of developmental challenges that are uniquely female. Issues around mother/daughter attachment, separation, competition, conflict, and love are explored in the relationships between the patient and her mother, the patient and her daughter, and the patient and the therapist. The therapist's countertransference, intensified by her relationships with her own mother and daughter, suggests the possibility of both pitfalls and opportunities in the treatment. The article attempts to address a gap in psychoanalytic developmental theory, which offers little understanding of the challenges for women in midlife.

Keywords:

• midlife development; mother/daughter relationship; transference/countertransference; enactment; separation/individuation; feminist theory; female oedipal

Notes

1. These competitive dynamics may be at play even when mother, daughter, or both identify as lesbian, bisexual, or transgender (LBT), or they may present quite differently. The case material here focuses on heterosexual mothers and daughters; the nature of the dynamics in LBT mothers and daughters is worthy of investigation but beyond the scope of thisarticle.

2. Indeed, even in the years since the publication of Benjamin's book, there is little psychoanalytic theory that addresses the unique developmental aspects of mothering or of the mother as an independent being.

3. Eissler (1974) reviews many possible conscious and unconscious meanings of payment, considering how and when they may facilitate or impede the treatment, and concludes that the individual patient's unique character and circumstances must be taken into account when dealing with issues arising around the fee.

4. Eissler (1974) further argues “the actual deprivations that the patient suffers as a result of treatment arrangements may satisfy his desire for punishment and thus constitute an obstacle to the proper analysis of his feelings of guilt” (p. 92) and argues against setting a fee that would jeopardize a patient's savings, a position that is consistent with mine.