Peggy Vermeesch interviews Jungian analyst Susan Schwartz. We look at the impact of unrequited love in daughters of an absent father, and how this complex dynamic can be worked with in the consulting room. We also reflect on the common experience of feeling like a fraud and the need to take off our masks and be ourselves.

Schwartz gives voice to misunderstood figures such as the Puella and Echo—archetypal aspects within us that carry the undervalued potential for depth, growth, and healing.

Video interview in English | Text in French

This interview centers around the core themes of Susan Schwartz’s books.

Peggy Vermeesch: I’m excited to dive into your research across the three books you’ve published, as well as your forthcoming book in July 2025. What interests me most is how these different topics connect in your mind and soul, how your interests and perspectives have evolved over the years, and how this evolution has shaped your work as a Jungian analyst.

The absent father effect

In 2020, you published your first book The Absent Father Effect on Daughters: Father Desire, Father Wounds, which has since been translated into several languages. You open in a striking way:

“This is a love story, but an unrequited one. It is about the needs a daughter has for a father figure, made more prominent and painful when he is absent.”

Could you say something about this love story between father and daughter and what that would look like in an ideal situation? In other words: what are the essential ingredients of a good-enough father-daughter relationship?

Susan Schwartz: It relates to many different aspects. It’s about how a father appreciates his daughter’s life force as both similar to, and different from, his own. So that what his love does is promote her strength of being and her sense of self, even if he is threatened or if she goes beyond him. Throughout her life, he would be present emotionally, be correct physically, encourage her physical development and her pride in body, mind, and soul.

It sounds like a tall order, but it would seem regular, like you would want to promote the development of children. The problem is that many fathers, across generations, did not have good fathers themselves. Let’s hope that it is changing now, but without that foundation, they can’t really pass on a certain wellness to their daughters. However, this does not leave them off the hook.

Many fathers give money, buy things, or provide. But do they provide a sense of feeling and connection? That is what I mean by love. Love unrequited is when you want it, but you can’t get it. It sets up pain inside. It also sets up a desire to grow. Think about all the things that are unrequited in people’s lives. It’s like an empty space. You want something, and in wanting it, it pushes the development, but in a difficult way. It could subsume the development. It could erase it. It could make a daughter feel badly about herself and self-destructive in many ways.

So many women, men too, all people, but especially women, and many women I have worked with, are very destructive to themselves. They consider it average to not like themselves. It just is. They also believe they can’t get through to their fathers. When asked: “How was your father?” the response is often just one line. It’s not much. He wasn’t there. He didn’t interact.

So these are all ways that one feels love is unrequited. If you can’t get a loving reaction as a child, you think it must be you. You think you did something wrong. And there’s the unrequited theme again. The love for self becomes unrequited as well. It’s not just the father who influences, but because so little has been written about fathers, there’s a lot of information to unpack.

You mention that this unrequited love “sets up a desire to grow”. So desire leads to development, but presumably it’s a matter of balance. You want some desire to be unrequited for there to be growth. But if it’s all unrequited, then it goes wrong. Is that how you see things?

I think that’s correct. There will always be some desire that goes unrequited. But if there is a huge hole, one needs a tremendous amount of something to come at you to make you develop yourself. And sometimes it takes years and years.

Another point is how the father-daughter romance is often promoted in cultures, at least in the United States. She must be his darling. But this means that she must be diminutive. She has to be small. She can’t go beyond him. So again, her development is stunted when there isn’t enough appreciation of her or when he doesn’t truly see her. Of course he shouldn’t see her sexually, but in a healthy sexual way, without putting her down for her mind, which still happens much too often. He shouldn’t dictate how she should be. I’m using a lot of shouldn’t here.

Things are changing now, but there has been a huge lacuna in the field of fathers, and particularly about the father-daughter relationship. Very little has been written on this in the last 25 or 30 years within the psychoanalytic, Jungian, therapeutic, and psychological literature. Some, but little.

It’s all about the mother, isn’t it?

It’s all about the mother and it is all about blaming that mother.

Whoever the father and mother figures are, each is meant to keep the other in their mind. That gives the daughter a sense of solidity and foundation. But if the father figure is absent to the daughter, is he also absent to the spouse? Then the spouse also feels unrequited, also not receiving. So we end up with a huge ball of frustration, anger, fury, and self-attack. That’s how it often manifests.

And perhaps even competition, if there’s so little of the father to go around. If both the daughter and the spouse are lacking in the masculine, could there be competition between mother and daughter?

There might be. And there might also be competition between daughter and father. When you don’t get enough, there is competition, but competition isn’t bad if it becomes conscious. All of this may be negative and unwanted, but if people become aware of what’s going on, it changes everything. Then there’s a real chance.

If it stays hidden and everyone ignores it, it becomes much harder. Then you get horrifying dreams—monsters, vampires chasing you, all kinds of things. Being chased is a way to wake you up to what’s really going on.

I gave a lecture on the absent father and its effect on daughters to a group of Jungian analysts and participants. One person said honestly: “I forget to ask about the father. I forget because he’s such a non-person.” This was in a different country, but in the United States it’s often the same.

When I ask about the father, the answer is just one line. “He was there.” Did he talk to you? “No.” Then come the excuses. You’re told he was an introvert, he was busy, he was always working, or you had to understand his moods. You hear a million things. And the things left unsaid are just as powerful. If you pry a little, you might get more, but often not much.

I wonder if it’s common for fathers to be wonderful, to fit that current cultural idea of doting on their daughters, and then everything starts to go wrong once she hits puberty.

Yes, there are crucial moments in life. Every day matters, but some moments are more pivotal, and you’re exactly right. What happens at that time?

Jung talks about this in relation to incest and libido—that the father doesn’t know how to manage the growing daughter because he hasn’t been in touch with himself. It gets very complicated. The father hasn’t connected with the many aspects of his own inner life, so the daughter threatens a precarious internal balance. If he can’t manage it, he distances her, pushes her away, and sometimes says horrifying things. It’s shocking—he might call her a whore, a slut, words that make you wonder: “Really? Why are you saying all this?”

The reason is that he can’t handle his own desire for his lovely daughter. It’s a defense. What he’s supposed to do with those feelings is appreciate her, tell her she’s great, that she’s doing well—not just because of her outer appeal, but because of her mind, her athletic ability, her creativity. All of this comes to the surface around puberty. It’s always there, but it becomes concentrated then. And if a daughter receives harshness in return, she turns away from herself. It’s too much. She can’t manage it. So she turns away.

If a father has been present but becomes absent around puberty, would you consider that an example of an absent father?

This is a story I often hear, and it doesn’t usually change across different economic classes, ethnic backgrounds, and religions. He could manage her when she was little because she was a little girl. She accepted whatever and loved him. But by the time she reaches puberty, she’s more differentiated. She might not love him all the time. She wants to argue, she’s just learned something, and she knows more than him.

Does he like that? No. He’ll push her away, partly because he’s learned to be emotionally distant. He needs to learn to be emotionally involved with himself and with others, because otherwise he can’t raise his daughter.

In return, she becomes quite disappointed. There’s a lot of energy there. Once she’s no longer daddy’s girl, and she’s becoming who she is, she’s considered a threat. He should be able to handle it. But often he cannot.

What would you give as advice to a father who’s grappling with that?

It’s interesting the way you phrase it. I don’t really give advice, but I would ask: “What’s going on that you’re acting this way? What’s happening inside of you? What do your dreams show? If you did an active imagination exercise on this, what would it look like? Can you imagine another way of being, so that together we could try to create other options that fit?”

The point is to develop from within. As the father develops from within, he will also pass this on. I don’t give specific instructions, but we can find options together.

That’s for the father you see in analysis. What about the father who reads this, for example? What would you say, apart from: “Go into analysis?”

It’s an interesting question, which reminds me of a man who wrote to me after the book was published. He wrote: “I’m the poster child for the absent father. I have three daughters. I have not been present enough. I want to learn and be more present.”

That’s what he took from the book—he wanted to learn to be more present. He was already open. I bet some crisis had happened in his life, maybe with one of his daughters. He realized he had to do things differently. We all get that red light that says: “Wait a second, pay attention.” And he got it.

How would you explore things with the mother, or any other parental figure, alongside an absent father?

I would ask: “What was your father like, and what have you projected onto your partner, regardless of sex? What have you projected that relates to your own father—what you liked or didn’t like? What are you carrying inside about yourself as a daughter that you’re projecting onto your daughter?”

In other words, the questions bring up the connection, which is the very piece that has been lacking. And in that connection, there’s a possibility of developing something different, not the same old thing—not the rote “I’m going to do exactly what I was raised with, even though I couldn’t stand it, but I’m going to do it anyway.” That’s being unconscious.

In analysis, we would hope that people gain options for operating. The mother is quite powerful in the sense of what she’s carrying about the image of the spouse—whether she’s conscious of it or not—that gets transferred to the daughter. When you mention the mother, you’re right, it’s very complex.

And, of course, the other piece is that we live in a world with a lot of single parents. There aren’t as many single fathers raising daughters. They usually get their children part-time, not full-time. I think that’s true in many countries. There’s a certain stigma around a father alone with his daughter, especially after puberty. It’s really a cultural taboo. It’s not talked about much.

I guess there’s the cultural fear as well as the personal fear.

If it’s made conscious, and people talk about it, it’s not so frightening. It’s about how you use the erotic energy—Eros—in a related way. Not by harming the daughter or putting the father down for what he feels, but by allowing him to use it for her development, not to crush her. Too often he crushes her.

And perhaps if it’s been so unconscious, the erotic energy might first come out for the father in a truly horrifying way.

It could. He might have an upsetting dream as well. So it could come out that way.

A father could also be physically present, but psychologically or emotionally absent. Or there might be a divorce or a separation, and he’s completely gone. Or he might have died early. There are many types of absence. Each has a slightly different effect, but they all involve loss and a process of grieving in order to continue one’s life and move forward.

How does this absence affect the daughter in later life? How does it affect her body, her voice, and the way she expresses herself in the world?

I have found that the loss must be acknowledged, and the desire, as well as the anger and frustration at having an ineffective and insufficient father, or having a father who was too powerful or authoritarian: a disciplinarian.

When it’s more severe, it can take longer to heal. There’s a natural thing that happens. Not always, but often you try to make it better than it was because it was so awful that you can’t quite take it in. So you pretend, making up stories to yourself, excuses for why he wasn’t there. But it happened. And that affects your body, your intellect, career, focus, development, and your family. It affects everything. It doesn’t work to tell yourself stories and try to make what was awful less awful. It just takes longer to unpeel the layers.

But you’re correct, it affects everything. Everything! And it causes a great deal of destruction—relationally, personally, psychologically, creatively. No doubt about it.

How does it unfold in the clinical relationship? You’ve already mentioned that what you would do is ask about the father and insist a little bit if you get only one line.

Well, if it’s just one line, I’ll say: You only have one line for a father who was supposedly with you for years? What happened?

And of course, what’s needed is for the father to walk into the office—metaphorically, symbolically. Sometimes I will become the father figure, or the father will be projected onto me. I’m always appreciative of that and try to make it conscious. I’ll ask: Do you think I’m acting like your father? What just happened there? Was that what you didn’t get, or what you needed, or what you’re angry about? Bring it up. Let’s talk about it.

That way, the father gets depotentiated in the psyche, because you can’t have your father running your being. That’s not right. The sense of self is supposed to run your being, not your father. So the more he’s involved in the analytic process—through dreams, active imagination, and the transference—the better, as far as I can see, because it brings clarity.

Is there anything that therapists should be especially mindful of when working with patients who have suffered a severe father wound?

To recognize it. And not try to make it better.

There’s another piece here. We all change. We hope most people grow through life. So I might say: “The father of now is not the father of before.” That’s a kind of differentiation. “Who was that earlier father? When did you notice he changed? Did that affect you in any way?” Therapists shouldn’t just move past the father, but really ask: “What is he doing there? How has he affected things? Is he still the way he’s remembered?”

Some people have been exposed to extremely difficult and traumatic situations and don’t remember. It’s not about inventing memories, but acknowledging that if you don’t remember, it probably wasn’t very good. That’s something to sit with. There needs to be an acknowledgment of what’s going on.

So often, the father becomes this all-powerful figure, and the daughter does not. Look up father in any literature and you’ll find associations with authority, power, discipline. Really? How did that come about? The mother isn’t usually linked with those qualities. Why does this dynamic keep happening? Even among people who want to be very egalitarian, the father still gets those projections. Our language speaks about fatherland, father country, father leader, etc. People get reduced into their child selves when they’re in the presence of that authority, rather than showing up in their adult selves.

We’re talking about something emotionally painful. Also painful because it hasn’t been explored very much. Jung wrote one essay on the father. He had five children. One essay! And he had a difficult relationship with his own father. So did Freud. Just look at the history and the generational energy that we all inherit in a strange way. We’re all susceptible to it.

While you were listing things like fatherland and father leader, I was thinking, but it’s mother tongue, right?

Yes, it’s mother tongue, and you mentioned voice earlier. But when the father has been so overriding, a daughter sometimes hesitates to have her voice.

The French psychoanalyst and writer Hélène Cixous writes a great deal about women’s voice. And she says she had a very good father. I don’t know what that really means, a very good father—but that’s her impression. She speaks about women’s voice, women’s writing, women’s way. I don’t know if women’s voice is different than men’s, but we’re raised differently. So the voice can get cut down by the father who doesn’t understand who the daughter is. It’s like he doesn’t understand that her energy also needs to be expressed through her voice.

In general, it’s still more difficult for women to have a voice in our society. It’s harder for women to be heard and even to be read. There have been several statistical studies, but one in particular examined how the gender of an author affects the perception of their work. It found that when people see a conference abstract with a man’s name on it, both men and women tend to associate it with greater scientific quality and express a greater interest in collaborating with that author (Knobloch-Westerwick et al. 2013).

That is very sad.

And this study is from 2013. It’s a contemporary problem.

I don’t think this is an issue from the past; it’s still very much relevant today. People often say things are changing, and they are, but not quickly enough. Just look at your example.

Consciously, we’re trying to make a change, but I think unconsciously, not much has changed.

It’s our generational heritage. We’re all subject to this unconscious, transgenerational story. No matter what culture we come from, we’re carrying it with us. And as the world gets smaller in some ways, we’re accessing many different cultures and ways of being through the collective unconscious. It’s crucial to be aware of what our particular culture carries about the father-daughter relationship.

And of course, cultures are becoming more mixed. American movies are everywhere.

True, and what do they promote? They promote an old way. And why? Because people are uncomfortable with change.

You asked what therapists would ask. Isn’t that something they would figure out through their own inner work? What is important? What is unconscious? What is unknown? Where are the gaps that need to be filled? Many people can’t look at it because it’s not pretty. It really isn’t.

There’s one more thing I would mention. From a Jungian psychology perspective, we could ask: What is the shadow of the father? His unlived life? His frustrations? How does that get put onto the daughter?” For instance, if the father sees himself as a success, what kind of shadow does he put onto her? Does he want her to be just as successful? If he sees himself as a failure, does she have to fail too, and not supersede him? The father’s shadow projected onto the daughter can be pretty powerful. Which part of his unlived life is she expected to live for him? And does that really coincide with who she is? It might not.

And the worst thing is perhaps also that if she really lives part of his unlived life and his shadow, then he might reject her for it, because it’s his shadow. He doesn’t want it. That would constitute a double betrayal.

Yes, and look at what we’re talking about: betrayal. If the father does not support the daughter in being who she truly is, he’s betraying her. And if he wants her to live his life, or gets angry when she does or doesn’t, she’s caught, and so is he. Nobody gets to live their own life.

This is not a happy subject. But the thing about looking at the unhappy sides—betrayal, loss, grief—is that it also relates to how we recover from it. It’s connected to having hope and joy. Because you have to have hope! That’s the space of desire. What do I truly desire? Not only from the father, but from my life. How am I going to get it? How can I amass my strength to make it happen? You have to have hope. Otherwise, you wouldn’t do it. Right? You wouldn’t.

No. Because it’s difficult work, and it’s long.

It takes a lifetime. But what else are you doing? What will help the world besides your own growth and development? So we might as well do it.

Imposter syndrome

In 2023, you published your second book Imposter Syndrome and the ‘As-If’ Personality: The Fragility of Self. Could you share a bit about this topic—what drew you to explore it and, perhaps, if and how it connects to the experience of an absent father?

I read an article by a Jungian analyst, Hester Solomon, on the ‘as-if’ personality. As I read it, I thought, oh my goodness, I see so many people like this—women, men, anyone. Even in the first session, they’ll say: “I’m a fraud. I’m fraudulent. I’m a liar. I don’t live my real life. Nobody knows me.” I looked for more information on this, but there’s very little.

This connects to women and their voices. A woman named Helene Deutsch, a Freudian psychoanalyst from the 1940s, wrote one of the first books on this, called The Psychology of Women. In it, she spoke about the ‘as-if ‘personality, but she described it in women—not men—as superficial, not deep, too flighty, uncapable. She kind of put them down.

But Hester Solomon saw something else. She saw that the ‘as-if’ personality was a cover for someone sensitive, tender, vulnerable, and afraid to reveal themselves. So, these people put on masks, a facade. They become imposters to themselves. Solomon respected what was going on inside these people. I thought that this is something nobody talks about. But in my experience, quite a few people say: “I am a fraud.” Why would they say that? Because they don’t want to be a fraud anymore. That was part of the impetus of why I wrote the book.

It connects with the father and themes I explore in my later books—especially narcissism. One learns to be singular as a defense. I’m alone. Nobody understands. The father didn’t understand. He tried to make me into something else. The only way to escape that was to be ‘as-if’. And that’s such a painful place. It’s very sad. I wrote this book because it’s important to be released from putting on masks, so you can be yourself.

I spoke with many people who shared how they get lost in the mirror, how they never look in mirrors, or how they’ve removed them entirely. The mirror is very important. But who are they mirroring? The father? The culture? Society’s expectations? Themselves? All of these are connected. The goal is to be released from the belief that you need a mask, from the feeling that you can’t be your real self. Because the point is to be yourself, whatever that is. It doesn’t always take one to comfortable places. But what can you do if you’re not going to be you?

Psychology has explored the imposter syndrome—that’s why I used that term too—but it mostly deals with the conscious life. An analytical approach includes the unconscious as well. People might find themselves in dreams, literally putting on a mask, pretending, rehearsing conversations. All of this is about hiding the shadow, needing to be perfect, having the perfect body. So here it is again—the physical. Why do you need the perfect body? Who demanded it? Was it the father? The mother? The culture? Or was it yourself?

That search for perfection is so elusive. You can never truly reach it.

I wonder if it’s worse the closer people can get. If you can never reach that ridiculous ideal of beauty in our Western society, maybe you’re forced to come to terms with your own appearance.

People do, but you know how difficult it is. They’ll say: “I’m working out,” or “I’ve lost weight.” I’ll ask: “Are you content with yourself?” and they’ll respond: “Oh no, I have five more pounds to go,” or “twenty-five more.” There’s always something left. That sense of contentment, the sense of self, the security inside, gets replaced by fragility. That’s why people feel they need to appear perfect.

I didn’t write this book to just be negative. I wrote it to open something up, so people can ask themselves: “Is this me?” And if it is: “How can I grow and develop?” It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take care of yourself. But it matters how you do it—being conscious of it, knowing that you matter. You matter. And for many, this dynamic comes from a deep feeling that they don’t matter.

I give the example of Sylvia Plath, the American-British poet from the 20s. She wrote a piece called The Mirror. In it, a woman looks at herself and feels criticized by what she sees. That’s typical. People look in the mirror, and it talks back: “You’re not good enough today.” Over and over.

But in the poem, she also looks into a lake—as if she’s looking into the depths of herself. And that’s where the answers lie. In the depths you find more of who you are. You don’t have to be trapped in a superficial definition of yourself. Your real value is down there. And from there, you can bring it into consciousness.

The lake is a great image.

The Puella archetype

Your third book A Jungian Exploration of the Puella Archetype; Girl Unfolding, delves into the archetype of the maiden. In your article on Jungian Psychology Space, you offer a refreshingly kind and nuanced portrayal of the Puella, providing a much-needed counterpoint to the way she, like the Puer, is often described.

What inspired this perspective? Did you feel compelled to advocate for the Puella and highlight her numerous positive qualities in a world that tends to see her only as childish or needy?

What an interesting word: compelled. Compelled means something is important. The Puella is usually dismissed or put down, like the Puer, as if there’s no value in that energy, or as if once you reach a certain age, you should no longer access that energy. However, throughout life, one wants to have energy and a certain youth, not be caught in it but be able to be creative, energetic, look at things with a different viewpoint, and find your depth. Because if you don’t live the girl—the Puella—throughout your life, what will happen? You can’t chop off part of yourself.

In the book I write about a woman in her seventies who became very creative despite a difficult diagnosis of Parkinson’s. She was like a Puella. She followed ideas, created things, stayed engaged. But not in a frenetic way, which can sometimes be a Puella trait that leads nowhere, with nothing completed. What she did was different. She allowed herself to feel her grief and her loss, and she worked with it. She spoke openly about how she truly felt. I saw in her that marvelous Puella energy—alive, expressive—and she used it to live as fully as she could.

That, to me, is something we all need: to live a full life and not be stopped. And Puella helps with that. Too often, I’ve heard people say: “Oh, she’s a Puella,” like it’s a bad thing. But why is that assumed to be negative? I wanted to shift the focus. It’s not bad. Like anything, it depends on how you use it.

Love and narcissism

Your upcoming book An Analytical Exploration of Love and Narcissism; The Tragedy of Isolation and Intimacy, is set to be released in July 2025. Could you give us a glimpse of what we can expect from this exploration?

In this book I talk a lot about the myth of Narcissus and Echo. I bring Echo in because, like many female figures, she tends to be forgotten. She becomes anorexic, losing her body entirely in the desire for love. Narcissus, too, loses his body in that same longing.

Reading Ovid, there’s the following beautiful line: “Narcissus does not know who he sees as he looks into the pond.” Again, we have the mirror. He doesn’t recognize himself. And that is the tragedy—the narcissistic person doesn’t know who they’re looking at. The real tragedy is the isolation. Here’s the theme of singularity again. He can’t see the other. But in order to grow, we need to see other parts of ourselves. He can’t. He only sees one part and doesn’t even know it’s him.

Another element is that Narcissus’s mother learned from the sage Tiresias that if he knows himself, he will not grow old. There’s something about growing old that he cannot do, because it’s not going to reveal himself to himself. He dies not knowing who he is. It is a story of deep, unfulfilled desire and unrequited love.

In the book, I use the myth to explore the figures of Echo and Narcissus. Others have written about Echo, though not many. Echo, regardless of gender or sex, often has the personality type of only being able to echo the other. But what she does with it is fascinating. Through her tone of voice, her word choice, she expresses herself. She’s not entirely silenced. She is the one who pursues Narcissus.

It turns the story around—and that is the challenge. So often people say: “So-and-so is a narcissist,” and write them off. What I’m saying is—don’t write them off. Yes, they may be a narcissist. But that doesn’t mean you can’t reach them. Go for it! Try to get through!

Try being Echo, but don’t lose yourself?

That’s exactly right. Echoing back with emphasis and with energy, but don’t get lost in their singularity trip. And call them on it. Because, again, behind that is the person who is very fragile, vulnerable, and tender, and that’s why the narcissism developed.

And sometimes a narcissist can be very dangerous. If you’re trying to be Echo and you lose yourself, then it can destroy you.

Well, if you lose yourself anywhere, you are destroyed. You are correct. And is it dangerous to lose yourself? Yes. You can’t live if you have lost yourself. I agree, totally. So the whole point is to find yourself. What other protection do we have?

I’ve noticed a recurring theme in your books and the subjects you choose—there seems to be a strong focus on standing up for those individuals, types, or figures who are often overlooked or marginalized.

A bit. I would say also perhaps the unexplored, or thus far unexplored. And I think it’s important to look under all the rocks and find the value that’s there, because there is! There’s lots of reasons why things are unexplored, and they need to just be explored and opened up.

Thank you very much for your time and thoughtful conversation. Your reflections have provided a compelling window into the psychological landscapes explored in your recent books, and it’s been a pleasure engaging with your ideas and the depth they bring to contemporary Jungian discourse.

For those who would like to know more about the Puella, see Exploring the Puella Archetype: Girl Unfolding, an insightful teaser article by the author, along with her book presentation on the same topic.

Interview conducted by Peggy Vermeesch – May 2025

References

Knobloch-Westerwick, S., Glynn, C.J., & Huge, M. (2013). The Matilda Effect in Science Communication: An Experiment on Gender Bias in Publication Quality Perceptions and Collaboration Interest. Science Communication, 35(5), 603-625.

Susan E. Schwartz, PhD

Susan E. Schwartz, PhD trained in Zurich, Switzerland as a Jungian analyst. She appears on many podcasts and presents at numerous Jungian analytical conferences and teaching programs in the USA and worldwide.

Susan E. Schwartz has numerous articles in journals and book chapters on Jungian analytical psychology. Her books, all published by Routledge, are:

The Absent Father Effect on Daughters: Father Desire, Father Wounds (2020), translated into several languages
Imposter Syndrome and the ‘As-If’ Personality: The Fragility of Self (2023)
A Jungian Exploration of the Puella Archetype; Girl Unfolding (2024)
An Analytical Exploration of Love and Narcissism; The Tragedy of Isolation and Intimacy (2025)

Her website is www.susanschwartzphd.com.

Learn more

Exploring the Puella archetype: Girl unfolding—an article by Susan Schwartz
Unrequited love, father wound, and fragility of Self—an interview with Susan Schwartz, conducted by Peggy Vermeesch (also available as a video interview)