The Unavailable Father [antikvár]

Introduction This book is about and for women who grew up with "unavailable" fathers. These fathers come in many forms, but they all have a common characteristic: they failed to provide their daughters with the unconditional love and the feeling of security that a child requires to become a woman with a positive self-concept and the ability to form close adult relationships. My interest in the lives of women who had unavailable fathers began with my own childhood and my relationship with my father. He was physically present but emotionally distant and even abusive toward me, though he behaved quite normally toward my brothers. My interest in this area grew over the course of my thirty-year-career as a psychotherapist, during which I have worked with many women of all ages who have experienced problems with adult psychosocial adjustment that are related directly to a failed father-daughter relationship. When I decided to write this book, I supplemented my personal experience and the lessons I learned in my clinical practice by carrying out a large number of interviews with a diverse group of women. My Father I grew up in White Plains, New York, in what looked like the perfect suburban family. My mother was pretty—tall with thick black hair and brown eyes. My father was very handsome, five nine or ten, straight nose, wide-set green eyes, and black hair (at least until he got older and it turned gray). He was an announcer for CBS and