She divides midlife women into four categories--traditional, innovative, expansive, protesting--and shows the cause for the midlife crisis and the path toward resolution for each type.

What do young people at the threshold of adulthood really need and want? Why do so many responsible and motivated teenagers become young adults who are still dependent, financially and emotionally, on their parents? Why are many young people today so quick to leave childhood behind, but so slow to become adults? In this wise and compassionate book, Terri Apter debunks outdated and misguided ideas about maturity: Acting in the name of love, many parents withdraw emotional or practical support, thinking it best for a son or daughter to solve his or her own problems--even to suffer alone the...

Mothers and teenage daughters argue more than any other child-parent pair--on average every two-and-a-half days. These quarrels, Terri Apter shows, are attempts to negotiate changes in a relationship that is valued by both mothers and daughters. A daughter often feels her mother doesn't know or understand her, and by fighting hopes to force her mother into a new awareness of who she really is, how she has changed, and what she is now capable of doing and understanding. But mothers often misinterpret their daughter's outbursts as signs of rejection, and they may pull back feeling hurt and...

Are mothers jealous of their developing daughters? Is an early mother-child bond severed during adolescence and never formed again? What does adolescence feel like to a girl?

Drawing on detailed interviews with mothers and daughters from Terri Apter's research in Great Britain and America, and from recent psychological studies of family interaction, Altered Loves is a frank, moving, and insightful examination of this crucial time in a woman's life. Apter shows that contrary to the classical view of adolescence as a stage in which daughters reject their mothers, adolescent daughters often...

Best Friends provides the missing link to understanding and recognizing the impact of some of the most important relationships in girls' and women's lives.
Every woman remembers the sting of betrayal of a girlfriend, and every parent of a daughter has seen her come home from school in tears because a girl she thought was her best friend suddenly and inexplicably became her enemy. While boys hash out differences with fists and kicks, girls' societies are marked by secrets and whispers and shifting affection. The lessons learned as an adolescent girl are often carried into adulthood,...

Mother love is often seen as sacred, but for many children the relationship is a painful struggle. Using the newest research on human attachment and brain development, Terri Apter, an internationally acclaimed psychologist and writer, unlocks the mysteries of this complicated bond. She showcases the five different types of difficult mother--the angry mother, the controlling mother, the narcissistic mother, the envious mother, and the emotionally neglectful mother--and explains the patterns of behavior seen in each type. Apter also explores the dilemma at the heart of a difficult relationship:...

Terri Apter reveals how everyday judgments impact our relationships and how praise, blame, and shame shape our sense of self.