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Honest Review – Will I Ever Be Good Enough?: Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers

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Review:

Since I’ve known for many years that my mother has NPD, I have read most of the books on the subject and was glad to find one aimed specifically at daughters. Like many books of its kind this one is useful for someone who is unaware or just becoming aware that their mother has NPD. Of the fourteen chapters in the book, most deal with anecdotal information about, how the mothers act, what the daughters feel, and how this affects their choices in relationships and the workplace. Two major classes of daughters, the self-sabotaging and over-achieving are each covered in their own chapters. She also devotes a chapter to the passive father model that is often present in these family systems and talks about how the family achieves the “appearance” of normality at the expense of the children.

Starting with chapter ten she begins to offer therapeutic advice, however there is nothing in those chapters that I hadn’t heard before. She brings up a lot of relevant topics like seeking to rediscover who you are and what your values are, describing what it will feel like to be at the point of health. The number of anecdotes she includes in this portion of the book drops off significantly. Where are the success stories??

I think this book is worth having. You will find that the stories ring true and you will probably agree with her approach to working on the issue. The one big draw back is the lack of major attention to the effects of lack of nurturing in infancy. Oddly enough a book called “Why Can’t I Be Good Enough: Escaping the limits of childhood roles” was published back in 2003, by Joan Rubin-Deutsch. There are many types of childhood experiences related to NPD, but most of the people I’ve met describe trauma, poor memory of childhood events and some degree of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. I attribute my own poor memory of childhood not to direct abuse, but to a childhood completely lacking in emotional texture.

It wasn’t until I started reading the work of Bruce Perry (The Boy Raised as a Dog) that I began to really understand what was missing from most therapeutic approaches. Lack of emotional stimulation in infancy can be at the core of many of the behaviors she describes in daughters and accessing feeling is not just about finding them and letting them flow. When the mother is incapable of responding with empathy to a child’s cries, the brain itself can fail to develop certain responses, leaving the child feeling alone and hopelessly different from others. It used to be assumed that nothing could change these patterns but today more is known about these issues, The Brain that Changes Itself by Norman Doidge) and Dr. Bruce Perry’s work are at the forefront. I especially recommend Perry’s book as an adjunct to this one. You may also wish to read Alice Miller’s “The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Affect of Cruel Parenting.”