Blaming mother is just a negative way of clinging to her still.

Oh, I know all about my mother and me,' you may say. 'All that business with my mother was over years ago.' You don't and it wasn't.

For instance, in group therapy, I'll have people stand up, show off, give a speech about themselves as though they've just died and have to give a eulogy. Even with this explicit permission - even an order - to say something nice about themselves, this is the hardest thing in the world for people to do. They'd rather take their clothes off.

In a baby's first months, the earliest patterns of intimacy or distrust are forever grooved into his soul.

After sex, men fear too much intimacy; they want to separate again. Women want to talk, to continue the merging, melting fusion into one. Postcoital conversations keep the woman's power alive. Through unconscious severance, by falling asleep, the man regains his self.

When I stopped seeing my mother with the eyes of a child, I saw the woman who helped me give birth to myself.

Blaming mother is just a negative way of clinging to her still.