Relationships Matter

"Some readers may recognize their mothers as well as themselves in this book. They will also find specific suggestions for creating healthier relationships. Addressing the adult children of borderlines and the therapists who work with them, Dr. Lawson shows how to care for the waif without rescuing her, to attend to the hermit without feeding her fear, to love the queen without becoming her subject, and to live with the witch without becoming her victim."

User Reviews about Understanding the Borderline Mother: Helping Her Children Transcend the Intense - Unpredictable - and Volatile Relationship

I am fortunate not to have a borderline mother, but I read this book after a gut- wrenching three year ordeal with a friend with bpd. When I shared our story with another friend, someone who DOES have a bpd mother, she shared this book with me. I must have sent this amazon link to the book at least a dozen times to other friends. It is an amazing book and will help you understand the human psyche in ways you will be astounded by. It even helped me learn to deal with other people in my life, who would not be diagnosed with bpd, but who are, shall we say, CHALLENGING. It has greatly helped me be more compassionate, understanding, and better able to cope with personality issues among my family and friends. It gives you tools to cope with, so that you don't end up transferring the issues of others into your own issues, or take blame, or feel guilty. It helps you keep your perspective. I seriously think every human being should read this book. i would like to give it's author a big hug and say "god bless you" for helping so many people in your practice and with this book, so masterfully written. -- highly recommend!

This book is extremely insightful to us. We know a person who fits this category and it was helpful to have all the insight. -- Extremely insightful

Great book. It puts my family into perspective. The parts about normal vs. abnormal were very illuminating. I now have a better understanding of my mother, the Queen, amd my father who enabled her. -- I'm not crazy after all!!

I wish this book had been entitled, "Understanding the Borderline Mother: Helping Her ADULT Children Transcend the Intense, Unpredictable, and Volatile Relationship." I bought and read it to help children who are CURRENTLY children - not even in their teens yet - who are dealing with a mother who portrays all the characteristics of the borderline Queen. Instead, I just became saddened at seeing what they will probably yet have to deal with and take into adulthood, since courts are hard to persuade to give custody to a father because of a mother's so-called (undiagnosed) personality disorder and the very secret and subtle abuse that occurs.

Still, having read a lot on this topic lately, it was good to see thorough coverage of the four types as well as how to deal with each individual type. Despite all I've read, a few key concepts finally clicked for me because of the anecdotal and research-based examples given. In fact, although my own mother is not borderline, I recognized some of her worst personality traits in the Hermit and was able to get some pointers as to how to deal more effectively with them. Still, given the price of the book, I wish that it had been able to completely fill my needs.

I would LOVE for this author (or any other, really) to write a similar book about how to best help little girls and boys who are currently struggling with what healthy and detached adults can recognize as traits of BPD. If anyone knows of one, please feel free to comment. -- Good but could use one important edit ...

My mother is bi-polar, and for my 58 years I've never really understood the "why" of so many things she's done, I still don't understand a lot, but this book has helped me see things through her eyes at least a little bit. Though I found the book a bit more technical in spots than I would I have liked, it was still very readable and the examples and case studies offered all helped show a different and yet similar side of the bi-polar mother. In fact, the book helped me see that a lot of the things I do and feel have basis in my mother's handling of me as a child, or from something I learned while she was in a manic stage.

While forgiveness is a difficult thing to offer to the bi-polar, this book helped me see that I wasn't the one who was one who was off-balanced, and that helped tremendously. My mother made me feel "wrong" as though I was the worst sort of human being, alternating with telling me how amazing I was/am....her back-handed compliments were probably some of her most confusing mannerisms, and after reading this book, I realize that the "wrong" was actually my mother's feeling about herself. Not me, it was never me.

It has taken a long time to get beyond or at least get through some of the consequences of living with a bi-polar mother, and this book helped facilitate some of that change.
I highly recommend it, my sister mentioned it to me, her therapist told her about it...if you have bi-polars in your life, you'll learn a lot in this book about how to deal with them, and their manic stages.
I've give it 6 stars if they were available!!
-- Finally, something to help me understand!