Book

The Beheaded Goddess

: Daughters of Narcissistic Fathers

"The Beheaded Goddess: Daughters of Narcissistic Fathers" is an archetypal, mythological, and transferential analysis of the loss of healthy aggression in an adolescent daughter. The specific family researched consists of a narcissistic father, an emotion

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Selma Nemer (14)Selma Nemer PhD (1)

“The narcissistic father does well receiving adoration, but the giving process is incomplete; it lacks empathy from the father back to the daughter. The reflective function breaks down, and the father keeps the adoration for himself, to fill a void. The daughter remains unseen. Her function is to mir…”

— Selma Nemer, amazon.com

“An integrated woman is powerful, erotic, insightful, and grounded, and this is too great a threat to a divided father-husband.”

— Selma Nemer, amazon.com

Tagged: powerful woman

“Grandiosity, self-importance, and requiring admiration and compliance with his own expectations are the attributes of the narcissistic father. The narcissistic father is critical and perfectionistic to the point where no one can meet his standards. The father gives loyalty to those who hold the fath…”

— Selma Nemer, amazon.com

Tagged: Narcissistic Fathers, Narcissistic Abuse

“The father needs to affirm to the daughter his way of loving her. The acknowledgment can be in words or action but must be clear and not hidden; otherwise the message she receives is that she is unlovable or that love is something shameful, needing to be hidden.”

— Selma Nemer, amazon.com

Tagged: Parenting, Fatherhood, Fathers and Daughters

“A daughter of narcissistic abuse idealizes her father to compensate for the reality of his persecution; otherwise, she could not exist, for existence would be intolerable in a world where primary figures, which should be protective and loving, are not.”

— Selma Nemer, amazon.com

Tagged: Narcissistic Fathers, Narcissistic Abuse

“Yet abuse is attention, which habituates one to defeat and numbness.”

— Selma Nemer, amazon.com

Tagged: Abuse, Numbness

“Each daughter of a narcissistic father experienced the need to perform, excel, care for others, and provide, never again to be vulnerable, where the libido experienced a lack of mirroring, absence and loss. Each daughter had to be better than her mother in order to be loved, but was not loved for he…”

— Selma Nemer, amazon.com

Tagged: Narcissistic Fathers, Narcissistic Abuse

“Beheaded goddesses, daughters of patriarchy, have a choice: give up or fight.”

— Selma Nemer, amazon.com

Tagged: Patriarchy, feminism

“The emptiness and chaotic infantile needs of a narcissistic father for merger with the feminine are unmet by a collapsed and depressed wife who has either chosen to subjugate her power to support the male myth or has had it belittled away. The mother equates pleasing with acceptance and love. This i…”

— Selma Nemer, amazon.com

Tagged: Narcissistic Fathers, Narcissistic Abuse

“It is safer not to emit the essence of one's self, for this will be taken and burned. And so the spark of self goes into hiding.”

— Selma Nemer, amazon.com

Tagged: Self Hibernation

“Aggression is declaring our own feelings in the face of an important other without retracting our truths out of fear of abandonment. Aggression is the capacity to take our voices and truths into the world, into movement, into active imagination. Abuse interferes with the daughter's healthy aggressio…”

— Selma Nemer PhD, amazon.com

Tagged: Narcissistic Fathers, Narcissistic Abuse, Daughters of Narcissistic Fathers

“A positive father is boundaried while emotionally available, mirroring regard and acceptance of a daughter's feminine essence and sexuality as it grows and develops. He can argue, state his position, and disagree while remaining respectful of a daughter's evolving process. The mature father gently a…”

— Selma Nemer, amazon.com

Tagged: Fatherhood

“A daughter of a narcissistic father unconsciously sacrifices her self, seething and stuffing the resentment. For years she may not even know she is angry, yet symptoms appear. The shell begins to crack; the veneer is thin. Her authentic wants and needs have never been experienced, so they cannot be…”

— Selma Nemer, amazon.com

Tagged: Narcissistic Fathers, Narcissistic Abuse, Daughters of Narcissistic Fathers

“In the telling of our stories, a transformation occur — the ah-ha of insight.”

— Selma Nemer, amazon.com

Tagged: Importance of Storytelling, Stories Matter

“Daughters of narcissistic fathers learn rules by observing the relationship of the mother and father. Roles become unconsciously internalized.”

— Selma Nemer, amazon.com

Tagged: Narcissistic Fathers, Parental Narcissism