Mothers Who Can't Love: A Healing Guide for Daughters

Susan Forward · Donna Frazier Glynn

Oct 2013 · HarperAudio · Narrated by Susan Forward, Kathleen Gati, Julia Whelan, Cherise Boothe, and David Atlas

About this audiobook

With Mothers Who Can't Love: A Healing Guide for Daughters, Susan Forward, Ph.D., author of the smash #1 bestseller Toxic Parents, offers a powerful look at the devastating impact unloving mothers have on their daughters—and provides clear, effective techniques for overcoming that painful legacy.

In more than 35 years as a therapist, Forward has worked with large numbers of women struggling to escape the emotional damage inflicted by the women who raised them. Subjected to years of criticism, competition, role-reversal, smothering control, emotional neglect and abuse, these women are plagued by anxiety and depression, relationship problems, lack of confidence, and difficulties with trust. They doubt their worth, and even their ability to love.

Forward examines the Narcissistic Mother, the Competitive Mother, the Overly Enmeshed mother, the Control Freak, Mothers who need Mothering, and mothers who abuse or fail to protect their daughters from abuse. 

Filled with compelling case histories, Mothers Who Can’t Love outlines the self-help techniques Forward has developed to transform the lives of her clients, showing women how to overcome the pain of childhood and how to act in their own best interests. 

Warm and compassionate, Mothers Who Can’t Love offers daughters the emotional support and tools they need to heal themselves and rebuild their confidence and self-respect.

Ratings and reviews

I have gone thru a relatiinship with my mother that has completely frozen me in my aging years, it has caused such deep trauma and emotional devistation within me that i stopped functioning at all 5 years ago Im still that 11 year old child that was traumatized so deeply at 11 & was never able to emotionally get beyond it. This book, is diving into very deep and dark places in my emotional soul that have needed to be opened up and cleaned out all of my life. Im doing the work now 2 b ok.

I want this book so bad, maybe it will help me. Understand why my mom hates me so much. Yet loves muy sister unconditionally. I want her love and care, you would think after giving me away at birth for 2 years and another 2 years a little later. She'll never love me

About the author

Susan Forward, PhD, is an internationally renowned therapist, lecturer, and author. Her books include the number-one New York Times bestsellers Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them and Toxic Parents. In addition to her private practice, she has served as a therapist, instructor, and consultant in numerous Southern California psychiatric and medical facilities.

Julia Whelan is a screenwriter, lifelong actor, and award-winning audiobook narrator. She graduated with a degree in English and creative writing from Middlebury College and Oxford University. While she was in England, her flirtation with tea blossomed into a full-blown love affair, culminating in her eventual certification as a tea master.