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The cover of this book is embellished with a Victorian narrative picture by William Lindsay Windus entitled ‘Too Late’. This, I feel, is the theme of Joel Covitz's book, as he seems to be trying to reach parents, especially those of his own patients, to tell them how they got it wrong.
Chapter and section headings give the author's classification of types of emotional abuse: parental inadequacy, devouring possession, tyranny, incest, abandonment etc. The roots of these abuses he finds in narcissistic personality disorder—‘the disorder of our time’. He seems to place other emotional disorders, such as depression or psychotic behaviour under the umbrella of narcissism. There is also some acknowledgement of the wider social context of family misery.
The book is for the ‘general reader’, a class which, according to the dust-jacket, includes parents, family counsellors, psychologists and teachers. It is not for analytical psychologists, for the archetypal sources of parent-child interaction, unconscious identification, participation mystique and projection are largely ignored. It is full of behests to parents, and the author shows little concern for the mother or father struggling with love and hate. So I think that it would generate too much guilt and rage to help them. The effect is often that parents are scolded into trying harder. For example: ‘A mother who suffers from chronic depression may find it especially difficult to be celebrational at the birth of her child’ (p. 32).
For the family counsellors, psychologists and teachers there are many statements about what parents should or must understand, but not much indication of how to affect their actions or understanding, how to contain their feelings and give them the experience of being understood. Indeed, the book is peppered with the words ‘should’ and ‘must’. Although there are many anecdotes and examples of parental inadequacy, devouring possessiveness, tyranny, incestuous behaviour etc., for an analytical psychol