The Center for Human Awakening BLOG



Fathers and Daughters: The Transformation at Puberty : Center for Human Awakening BLOG
The Center for Human Awakening
The Center for Human Awakening
~ The Psycho-Spiritual Teachings of Richard Harvey ~
HomeAboutCoursesCommunityResearchWebshopContact Us

BLOG
Blogs contained here emanate from questions or responses to themes that arose in psychological and spiritual settings – sessions, groups, training workshops, etc. Please note that blog entries 64-166 are drawn from Richard Harvey’s articles page. This retrospective series of blogs spanned over 25 years; please remember when reading them that some of Richard’s thought and practice have evolved since. We hope you enjoy this blog and that you will carry on submitting your psycho-spiritual questions for Richard’s response, either through the form on our Contact Us page or in the ongoing video blog series. Thank you.

Fathers and Daughters: The Transformation at Puberty

by Richard Harvey on 08/19/16


Once I said to my father, 'Why do you want me?' I still think that's the bravest thing I've ever done. -- China Miéville, This Census-Taker

 

It was during those years that I discovered that loving [my father] was like sticking a blade into my own heart. It got me nowhere, except awake in the middle of the night, recalling the years when my father was the strongest, the smartest, the funniest, and I lay curled in my bed, wondering why I had been cheated out of a father who loved me, and one I could love in return. -- Alison Singh Gee, Where the Peacocks Sing: A Palace, a Prince, and the Search for Home

 

 

Fathers of daughters face a great challenge when their little girl reaches puberty. Around the age of twelve, thirteen or fourteen a terrific transformation is taking place and it is crucial that fathers are adequately equipped to handle the changes and transformation wisely and compassionately. If they don't then they may regret it for the rest of their parental lives.

 

The female is transforming from being a little girl to a young woman. Puberty presents her with emotional, sexual, sensual, and mysterious forces growing and conflicting and causing a tempest of confusion and disorientation inside her, as she attempts hopelessly to grapple with the birth of her new self. She seeks the father's help in this, she demands it, she desperately needs his support, his orientating powers and reflection to know, understand, and reflect back to her who and what she is, was, and will become.

 

There may never have been a golden era when this transition was handled appropriately, ideally, or even well. It may well be that it has always been compromised. Today we have women who may have the vote, some vague sense of parity with males at work (or not), a consciousness of gender issues and self-value. However, until the rite of passage I am referring to here has been understood and acted on, the place of women in the world today will always be compromised, the true value of women will be unrecognized, and in spite of our work with violence and prejudice these same evils and negativity will live on in over half of the world population.

 

The intelligent, informed father must understand that, through him, his daughter seeks to be contained, within firm loving boundaries. She needs to test her power -- against him, as this is (theoretically at least) the safest place to do it. It is also the most relevant place to do it, as her unpredictable and volatile behavior presages her entry into the interpersonal dynamics of relational intimacy, sexuality, and attachment to a partner.

 

Father must hold his own attachments to his daughter lightly. He must let her go; he must release her of identification with the little girl and welcome and help to create through his acceptance the young woman in her who she is about to become

 

Understanding the tremendous rite of passage which is taking place, the father must be able to put his own issues to one side. This is of course virtually impossible. In fact it may only happen when the father has some familiarity with his inner processes and internal world through some sustained period of inner work with a skilful and effective practitioner. Without such a period of therapy and inner work the father will behave essentially unconsciously without any awareness of the compelling and unconscious life patterning that underpins his existence.

 

Even when the father can put his personal material to one side he is faced with some of the most challenging and potent relationship experiences of his life. The young girl moving into young womanhood desperately seeks to feel acceptance and experience clear boundaries, the recognition of her personal power, the acknowledgement of her frustration and tremendous effort to become, in the long line of individual and collective development, a woman.

 

Related material: see “Men and Women in Therapy” in Richard Harvey, Human Awakening, 56-61, at http://www.sacredattentiontherapy.com/Books.html

BLOG entry #57

Comments (0)


Leave a comment


ArhatArticlesMeditationsNewsletterQ & AServiceVideosVLOG