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Geoghegan. C, Book review, The Absent Father Effect on Daughters by Dr Susan E. Schwartz, Reformulation 56, p.25-27
I write this review as both a daughter and a woman working therapeutically with daughters of absent fathers and absent fathers of daughters. What drew me to this book (contrary to the adage of not judging a book by the cover) was my gaze being drawn to the cover image on the bookseller’s table at the 2022 CAT conference. Two silhouetted figures depicting a powerful image of a daughter longing to be seen and a father turning his back in a way that seemed to be a sign of rejection. I decided to pick it up, leafing through, I became more curious about the impact of the fathers that symbolically enter the therapy space in my work, but also to broaden my coherence of my own evolving experience of a paternal gaze. I bought it, and read it with a few questions in the back of my mind: how does a daughter uniquely relate to a father’s absence? Is absence still something? What happens when the father’s destructiveness is outside of awareness and how does this impact on how a daughter perceives herself and men?
The Absent Father Effect on Daughters is written by Dr Susan Schwartz, a Jungian analyst and clinical psychologist based in the US. Dr Schwartz has previously written articles and chapters about daughters and fathers, creatively drawing links with the puella Jungian archetype and Sylvia Plath. The book also includes rich illustrative examples from the Bible, to Greek Mythology and poetry. Drawing from different sources offers a multidimensional approach to themes of masculinity, femininity, power and creativity in this publication.
Though she has co-authored a book about couples, this is her first book as the sole author. However, this is not to overlook the contributions of a collection of voices from her clinical work, as Dr Schwartz introduces us to her ideas by respectfully weaving client’s material and Jungian theory to illustrate the myriad of different ways that fathers can impact on their daughter’s social development, creativity and psyche. She speaks to the experience of emotionally unavailable and internally ‘deadened’ fathers, ‘bad dads’ and those who are just not around at all, in any shape or form.
There is a fluidity to the way in which the chapters unfold. Like conversations during the unstructured time at a conference. Throughout this book, I experienced a sense of acceptance for the fragility of the self in an ever-changing world of roles, expectations of gender, vulnerability and emotional nurturance and our limitless potential for adaptation. The absence of something, also referred to as ‘a lack’ can be filled with something else. Without pathologizing, Dr Schwartz applies her Jungian perspective as template to illustrate how it seems as if we are all vulnerable to some complex or another taking hold of us.
In answer to my question of whether absence is still something: yes it is. As Dr Schwartz states, ‘recognising what was not there is necessary for new things to become possible’. In the absence, a daughter may create an unattainable ideal of what she wishes could be there. This book shared a specific insight into how the Puella archetype can take over the psyche of a daughter living with a gap where paternal care and nurturance was needed. There are case examples of women who strive to prolong their youth, in a Peter Pan kind of way, to be forever young. The impact of an absent father on this complex is explained in depth. The final chapter speaks to how such daughters can create space to feel the absence in therapy instead of filling the void with cynicism, denial and avoidance, defensively reinforcing the hurt. Naming this process, Dr Schwartz explains how a daughter can create a positive version of a father archetype within herself. There are elaborate explanations of the process of acceptance and individuation as a way to overcome the pain emanating from the abyss of the psychic gap created by an absent father.
The way case examples are brought into the chapters feels authentic, true to the essence of what these daughters were searching for by seeking therapy and not at all steered by Dr Schwartz’s own agenda. In fact, when researching her career, it seems this book is a collection of where she has shone a light on her own and other’s shadows. It comes across just how Dr Schwartz has artfully composed this book following on from her passion for the pertinent issues raised in these case examples.
For instance, in the ‘Bad Dad – Negative Father Complex’ chapter, Dr Schwartz discusses ideas around the cultivation of passion and how creativity and freedom of expression can be stifled by the lack of a ‘solid’ father figure. This is where this book segues into CAT quite nicely. As with CAT, a compensatory procedure arises from an unmet need. Dr Schwartz explains the absence of a containing, emotionally present father creates an ‘abyss’ with a unique kind of hold within, there is a lack of integration and splitting of the persona, characterised by ‘a demonic possession of the psyche’, especially where the father is really not aware of his destructive capacity, it is more likely this will be transmitted to the daughter. Dr Schwartz puts forward the idea that the daughter becomes that which she dislikes in her father. In CAT we would see this as an internalised parent/ other to self reciprocal role – which then influences the repertoire available for the daughter to enact internally or with others. Dr Schwartz’s perspective offers something in her eloquent explanation of how an overpowering paralysing internal representation of a father can impact on a women’s expression of masculinity, coming across aggressively as opposed to ‘graciously and paternally’. This overpowering, paralysing representation can be considered to be one way of understanding what happens when the father’s destructiveness is outside of awareness.
We can apply the ‘as-if’ personality to understand the follow up question: how does this impact on how a daughter perceives herself and men? Dr Schwartz eloquently writes about an ‘as-if’ personality which she argues stems from an absence and the pain of connecting with the absence of a father’s presence. In CAT we could consider this similar to our understanding of a multiple states model of the self, characterised by adaptive ways of relating in response to adversity and unmet needs to protect the fragile, vulnerable, exposed self within for fear of exposure leading to self-annihilation. Dr Schwartz similarly explains that, for a daughter, such a persona, or ‘carapace’ takes on the form of what is acceptable for given circumstances. Interestingly, a carapace on a turtle or crab is the only skeletal element that is developed inside out in vertebrates, similar to how we experience transference in a therapeutic relationship, what is developed inside then manifests between us.
This carapace performs in response to discontinuous emotions and a performative role is the result. Desires are dampened arising from a deep fear they will remain unmet and past longings, disappointments and unknowns will resurface and reinforce defences, remaining unfulfilled or actively turning the rage inwards in the form of depression, crippling self-doubts, serving to reinforce the status quo. Building on this concept, the work is in questioning the narrative in the defence. Dr Schwartz’s description of this procedure also speaks to our understanding of narcissism in CAT, compassionately appreciating the origins of such a way of relating in a fundamental human need for close connection and the lack of experiencing the cherishing sparkle in a parent’s eye. This ‘as-if’ personality comes across as a clear yet complex way of understanding why a daughter would develop a ‘performative‘ role in order to establish some kind of connection with a ‘bad dad’. Another angle explored in the book is the ‘dead father effect’, this theoretical idea is unpicked in relation to mirroring between fathers and daughters. Stemming from the work of André Green, Dr Schwartz elaborates on what daughters learn to do in response to not feeling able to just be in response to an emotionally deadened, depressed father. This links smoothly with perhaps a CAT self-state comprised of a critical, relentlessly demanding inner tyrant or core pain of emptiness, with a reciprocal role of killing off to annihilated.
This book offers a deep analysis into a theoretical narrative where the role of the father is the subject of a therapeutic lens for women who present as incomplete, inhibited and unfulfilled in their lives. Daughters can work towards accepting the reality of the fallibility of their fathers and shed some of the impact of this denial maintained by such deep hurt. I was left wondering whether there is scope for this theoretical perspective to be applied proactively? Can a better relationship with a father enhance the likelihood of a better relationship with our internalised representations of our own masculinity? It seems this is possible if there is potential for a daughter to curiously examine her own shadow, bring the realities of her relationship with her father to awareness – in acknowledging his presence by virtue of absence or active harm, she can develop her knowledge of herself. The focus is on the experience the daughters report of their fathers and left me wondering what sense the fathers make of their absences too? Dr Schwartz explains how the daughter and father can both grow in relation with themselves and with each other by addressing such chasms in the relationship, it takes courage and willingness to share vulnerability.
Of course, these ideas are by no means deterministic and each person’s therapeutic story will carry their own personal meaning. The case examples shared details which left me with a sense of the person on an intimate level, but also wondering where they position themselves in society at large. The only downside to this book is the clinical cases to exemplify Dr Schwartz’s ideas lack specific details about political, social, cultural classes - although alluded to – these came across as unclear. It may be worth exploring some themes raised in this book and the impact they have alongside social and cultural influences. This is especially relevant given how the father-daughter dynamic is a transgenerational one; fatherly absence narrows available roles potentially stemming from the relational echoes of the fathers of the fathers.
Conclusion
This book contributes a theoretical template for expanding our curiosity in response to why a woman might experience a loss of purpose, or a difficulty in being and accepting all of who they are and can become, to prompt us to wonder about the father-daughter relationship and what sense the daughter carries of this with her. Traditional psychotherapy literature emphasises the mother child dyad so maybe it is time for us to shine a brighter light on the value, and influence of the impact of fathers and the stories daughters tell us about this relationship.
For therapists with an interest in gender and wishing to explore the intricacies of the father-daughter relationship in depth, this book offers inspirational stories of loss and the meaning in this relationship without limiting this to an Electra complex. Similar to CAT theory, Dr Schwartz suggests working towards integration by accepting the shadow and the real within us, no longer engaging with the ‘as if’ personality and to ‘betray the collusion with the roles detrimental to her individual style and find supportive ones’. To essentially be more like Cordelia from King Lear.
The absent father is an unrequited love story and the daughter can change the narrative, instead of filling the void with more hurt, to shine light into the shadows within created from without, to voice rather than silence her rich, creative and wonderous inner self. I leave you with this line as a take home point: ‘the daughter walks a long road from illusions and wishes towards authenticity and reality’.