| This theoretical study broadly explores the intersection of history, psychological theory, and literature in understanding mother-daughter relationships in Western culture. This interdisciplinary approach incorporates accounts of mother-daughter relationships in the context of changing Western family configurations since the Colonial era, with a particular emphasis on debunking contemporary myths of the white middle-class nuclear family as "normal," standard, and ahistorical. This study also explores formulations of mother-daughter relationships in selected Western psychoanalytic and feminist theories, tying classical psychoanalytic tendencies towards racist and classist thinking, mother-blame, and pathology with political and cultural forces, and feminist tendencies towards the affirmation of mothers and daughters across race, culture, class, and sexual orientation with a the rise of the Civil Rights and Women's Movements of the late 20th century. Finally, this work explores the subjective accounts of mothers and daughters through the medium of two contemporary memoirs, At Home in the World (1998) by Joyce Maynard and Landscape for a Good Woman (1986) by Carolyn Kay Steedman, and the novel Sula (1973) by Toni Morrison. By combining historical, psychological, and literary perspectives, this study attempts to locate various psychologies of mother-daughter relationships in cultural context, taking into account relevant social, historical, economic, and political factors. Its intended application to the field of clinical psychology is a more comprehensive and inclusive understanding of Western mother-daughter relationships across culture, race, class, and sexual orientation, a greater awareness of the impossibility of classifying these relationships as a single entity or dynamic, as has occurred in the past, and a heightened sensitivity among clinicians about the construction of psychological theory in tandem with socio-historical context. |
