From Persephone to Sylvia Plath the mother-daughter relationship has been central to every woman's life. Using her wide experience as a psychotherapist, Nini Herman traces the struggle of mothers and daughters to free themselves from each other - to recognise each other as separate. Where they succeed, their relationship can be a source of enduring strength; when they fail, it can lead to frustration, madness and even suicide.

Nini Herman is the author of Too Long a Child: The Mother-Daughter Dyad, published by Wiley.