ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a passionate attachment between a mother and daughter that was not gradually relinquished as the daughter matured. Rather than encouraging development, this attachment prevented the patient from acquiring a sense of autonomy and mastery. In order to distinguish the dynamics of this violating, destructive passionate attachment from those of healthy, loving attachments, I touch on the psychoanalytic conceptualizations of symbiosis and separation-individuation, offering a contemporary understanding of both. I also offer ideas about some familial factors that may breed this perversion of the mother-daughter bond. I also observe the value of a lifelong bond between a mother and daughter, but one that encourages “autonomy with connectedness” (Bernstein, 2004, p. 608). The chapter illustrates a form of passion that ultimately can cause more pain than pleasure in the lives of the passionate partners.
