Longitudinal Indicators of Women's Identity and Family Self and Daughters' Current Perspectives on Relationships with Nonalcoholic and Alcoholic Parents

Abstract

Change and stability on identity and family self indicators, first studied in 1989, are documented among 54 women aged 47.26 (SD=8.44) years; 26 of these women were interviewed in 1997 as well. The present study examined daughters' perceptions of relationships with parents and their influences on women's identities, self-perceptions, and vulnerabilities to distress.

Categorizing women by parents' alcoholism status and respondents' concurrent therapeutic activities explained a modest proportion of variance on identity and family self in 1989. By 1997 there were no longer significant differences between alcoholics' daughters and nonalcoholics' daughters. Variance attributable to 1989 group categorization was considerably reduced.

Phenomenological themes revealed among daughters' reflections included the importance of parents' time and attention with striking differences on relating with parents in alcoholics' families and nonalcoholics' families. Essential features of perspective taking experiences explain similarities and differences in daughters' felt closeness to parents influencing women's identities, self-perceptions, and therapeutic activities. Incongruity between sociocultural ideals and lived experience evidently exacerbate women's existential struggles.