Terri Apter

Describes the five different types of difficult mothers, explains how adults can still suffer from negative relationships with their mothers, and how people can overcome the challenges of their complex feelings.

Difficult Mothers: Understanding and Overcoming Their Power

"Parents and young adults alike should benefit from the advice in Apter's insightful book."—Washington Post What do young people at the threshold of adulthood really need and want? Why do so many responsible and motivated teenagers become young adults who are still dependent, financially and emotionally, on their parents? Why are many young people today so quick to leave childhood behind, but so slow to become adults? In this wise and compassionate book, Terri Apter debunks outdated and misguided ideas about maturity: Acting in the name of love, many parents withdraw emotional or practical support, thinking it best for a son or daughter to solve his or her own problems—even to suffer alone the consequences of mistakes. Apter shows us that young adults actually need a parent's guidance and support, while also requiring respect and independence. Based on carefully observed case studies and current research, this book describes how we can support young people through a crucial stage in their development.

The Myth of Maturity: What Teenagers Need from Parents to Become Adults

An incisive new look at the complex bond that exists among sisters explains how an understanding of a woman's feelings toward her sister can shape her relationships with all women, analyzing diverse facets of the sister bond from infancy through adulthood, as well as the need to differentiate oneself from one's sister while, at the same time, dealing with the protectiveness one feels toward that same person.

Why We Fight, Why We're Jealous, And Why We'll Love Each Other No Matter What

Sister Knot

Women's relationships with each other are often defined by a rocky mix of emotions, leading to anguish and confusion. Profoundly insightful, The Sister Knot clarifies the complexities, tensions, and intimacy that form the bonds between sisters and the women who come to represent sisters, and it demonstrates to any reader the fundamental strength to be found through understanding sisterhood.

Why We Fight, why We're Jealous, and why We'll Love Each Other No Matter what

The Sister Knot

Terri Apter reveals how everyday judgments impact our relationships and how praise, blame, and shame shape our sense of self.

Praise and Blame in Everyday Life

Passing Judgment

“The best book on sisters, very important and beautifully written.”—Carol Gilligan, author of In a Different Voice This “substantial contribution to the literature on sibling relationships” (Library Journal) explores the intricacy, friction, and love in bonds between sisters. Relationships between women are often freighted with a rocky mix of emotions—devotion and disregard, affection and loathing, admiration and envy—leading to anguish and confusion on the playground, in the home, and in the boardroom. Negotiating her layered feelings toward a sister shapes a woman’s psychology as forcefully as do her relationships with her parents. Drawing on compelling interviews and new research, Terri Apter considers the many aspects of the sister relationship from birth through adulthood. The need to fight to differentiate oneself from a sister, as well the protectiveness one feels for that same person, is explained by reference to extensive psychological and biological evidence.

The Sister Knot: Why We Fight, Why We're Jealous, and Why We'll Love Each Other No Matter What

The Teen Interpreter is a generous roadmap for enjoying the most challenging, and rewarding, parenting years. Once children hit adolescence, it seems as if overnight “I love you” becomes “leave me alone,” and any question from a parent can be dismissed with one word: “fine.” But while they may not show it, teenagers rely on their parents’ curiosity, delight, and connection to guide them through this period of exuberant growth as they navigate complex changes to their bodies, their thought processes, their social world, and their self-image. In The Teen Interpreter, psychologist Terri Apter looks into teens’ minds—minds that are experiencing powerful new emotions and awareness of the world around them—to show how parents can revitalize their relationship with their children. She illuminates the rapid neurological developments of a teen’s brain, along with their new, complex emotions, and offers strategies for disciplining unsafe actions constructively and empathetically. Apter includes up-to-the moment case studies that shed light on the anxieties and vulnerabilities that today’s teens face, and she thoughtfully explores the positives and pitfalls of social media. With perceptive conversation exercises that synthesize research from more than thirty years in the field, Apter illustrates how teens signal their changing needs and identities—and how parents can interpret these signals and see the world through their teens’ eyes. The Teen Interpreter is a generous roadmap for enjoying the most challenging, and rewarding, parenting years.

The Teen Interpreter: A Guide to the Challenges and Joys of Raising Adolescents

"The author of Altered Loves . . . now turns her analytical eye toward middle-aged women. The result is both lively and revealing." --New York Times Book Review In this groundbreaking and insightful study Terri Apter traces womens midlife course, drawing on detailed interviews with women in their forties and fifties. Apter finds that women experience a renewed sense of themselves and see the second half of life as an opportunity for psychological growth and fulfillment instead of a time of despair over lost youth and beauty. She divides midlife women into four categories--traditional, innovative, expansive, protesting--and shows the cause for the midlife crisis and the path toward resolution for each type.

Secret Paths: Women in the New Midlife

Once children hit adolescence, it seems as if overnight "I love you" becomes "leave me alone," and any question from a parent can be dismissed with one word: "fine." But while they may not show it, teens benefit from their parents' curiosity, delight, and connection. In The Teen Interpreter, psychologist Terri Apter looks inside teens' minds--minds that are experiencing powerful new emotions and awareness of the world around them--to show how parents can revitalize their relationship. She illuminates the rapid neurological developments of a teen's brain, explains the power of teenage friendships, and explores the positives and pitfalls of social media. With perceptive conversation exercises that synthesize research from more than thirty years in the field, Apter illustrates how teens signal their changing needs and identities--and how parents can interpret these signals and see the world through their teen's eyes. The Teen Interpreter is a generous roadmap for enjoying the most challenging, and rewarding, parenting years.

A Guide to the Challenges and Joys of Raising Adolescents

The Teen Interpreter

Examines the mother-daughter relationship during adolescence, discusses how mothers influence their daughters' behavior, and looks at the role of adolescence in the development of personality

Mothers and Daughters During Adolescence

Altered Loves

Ruthellen Josselson

Best Friends provides the missing link to understanding and recognizing the impact of some of the most important relationships in girls' and women's lives. Every woman remembers the sting of betrayal of a girlfriend, and every parent of a daughter has seen her come home from school in tears because a girl she thought was her best friend suddenly and inexplicably became her enemy. While boys hash out differences with fists and kicks, girls' societies are marked by secrets and whispers and shifting affection. The lessons learned as an adolescent girl are often carried into adulthood, making women fear confrontation--especially with other women. But the intensity of the struggles reflects the support and healing to be found within these friendships. Girls find themselves in the mirror of other girls, hence the power each has to influence the other. Ruthellen Josselson and Terri Apter's many years of working with hundreds of girls and women have given them insight into the emotionally important relationships that are integral to a girl's self-image. Best Friends explores the bonds of friendship between girls and between women and the sorrows and joys they experience together, from early adolescence and throughout their lives.

The Pleasures and Perils of Girls' and Women's Friendships

Best Friends

Terri Apter reveals how everyday judgments impact our relationships and how praise, blame, and shame shape our sense of self. Do you know that praise is essential to the growth of a healthy brain? That experiences of praise and blame affect how long we live? That the conscious and unconscious judgments we engage in every day began as a crucial survival technique? Do you think people shouldn’t be judgmental? But, how judgmental are you, and how does this impact your relationships? “Keenly perceptive” (The Atlantic) psychologist and writer Terri Apter reveals how everyday judgments impact our relationships, and how praise, blame, and shame shape our sense of self. Our obsession with praise and blame begins soon after birth. Totally dependent on others, rapidly we learn to value praise, and to fear the consequences of blame. Despite outgrowing an infant’s dependence, we continue to monitor others’ judgments of us, and we ourselves develop what relational psychologist Terri Apter calls a “judgment meter,” which constantly scans people and our interactions with them, and registers a positive or negative opinion. In Passing Judgment, Apter reveals how interactions between parents and children, within couples, and among friends and colleagues are permeated with praise and blame that range far beyond specific compliments and accusations. Drawing on three decades of research, Apter gives us the tools to learn about our personal needs, goals and values, to manage our biases, to tolerate others’ views, and to make sense of our most powerful, and often confusing, responses to ourselves and to others.

Passing Judgment: Praise and Blame in Everyday Life

Breaking new ground in family psychology, an exploration of the intricacy, friction, and love in the bonds between in-laws. When we marry, we believe the bond is between only two individuals. Few of us realize the power that inlaws will exert over our lives. But the in-laws we acquire when we marry affect our quality of life—our marriage, family, personal comfort, and long-term well-being—for better or worse. What Do You Want From Me? takes a fresh look at the age-old problem of managing conflict with in-laws, offering practical help for dealing with problems that are both immediate (“How do I deal with my in-laws now?”) and strategic (“How can I change the nature of my in-laws’ demands?”). Terri Apter, a psychologist whose books on family dynamics have received international acclaim, draws on nearly two decades of psychological research to pinpoint the sources of tension between in-laws and explore the ways in which we can build healthy relationships with the in-laws in our lives.

What Do You Want from Me?: Learning to Get Along with In-Laws

Understand what your teenage daughter really means—and learn to use your arguments to strengthen your bond with her. Mothers and teenage daughters argue more than any other child-parent pair—on average every two-and-a-half days. These quarrels, Terri Apter shows, are attempts to negotiate changes in a relationship that is valued by both mothers and daughters. A daughter often feels her mother doesn't know or understand her, and by fighting hopes to force her mother into a new awareness of who she really is, how she has changed, and what she is now capable of doing and understanding. But mothers often misinterpret their daughter's outbursts as signs of rejection, and they may pull back feeling hurt and confused. Through case studies and conversations between mothers and daughters, Apter shows mothers how to interpret the meanings behind a daughter's angry words and how to emerge from arguments with a new closeness.

Terri Apter

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