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by Jacqueline Lapa Sussman
Confident Mothers
Healthy Daughters
 In a talk to an audience of mothers of
daughters, I asked the women to
close their eyes and see a simple
image in their minds, an image of
an everyday occurrence. “See that
you are looking at yourself naked in front
of a full length mirror. Look at your face
and body. Are you happy with what you
see?” In an audience of over 60 women,
only one raised her hand. I then asked,
“How many of you dislike what you see?”
The rest of the women raised their hands.
I was stunned, as I was looking out over
an audience of well-groomed, attractive
women in an affluent community,
women who obviously took the time to
exercise and cared about how they
looked. I told them, “Your attitude about
your own body and sensuality, whether
you talk about it or not, is automatically
passed down to your daughter. Who you
are affects your daughter’s sense of self
for the rest of her life.”
SOCIETY’S PRESSURE AND STRESS ON WOMEN
Mothers are powerful role models for
their daughters’ images of themselves.
Daughters imitate and identify with their
mothers in deep and powerful ways. This
imitation is not conscious. A mother’s tone and body language program her
daughter with attitudes that affect her
for the rest of her life. A mother who
accepts how she looks and has a
healthy attitude about weight, wrinkles
and aging, goes a long way in helping
to counter the peer and media pressure
her daughter faces. Similarly,
when mothers don’t feel they measure
up to society’s beauty standards, they
knowingly or unknowingly pass on
those feelings of inadequacy to their
daughters. Even the slightest comments
that a mother makes about herself,
such as, “Does this outfit make
me look fat?” or “Oh God, look at the
awful wrinkles around my eyes,” will
in.uence her daughter.
However, self acceptance is difficult,
as all women, old and young alike, are
under the constant assault of media generated
images of youth, beauty and thinness
as the measure of a woman’s worth.
Simply going grocery shopping, women
are surrounded by magazine covers that
tell them how to look better, thinner,
younger and more in shape. At home, television
ads, such as those selling toothpaste,
emphasize the need for a sexy
smile, not oral hygiene, and of course,
the ad features a young, beautiful woman
who is the ideal of desirability. Everything
around a woman tells her that how she
looks is the key to her value. Young girls
are bombarded with images of surgically
enhanced bodies and airbrushed faces
on the covers of popular adult, teen and
even preteen magazines. Is it any wonder
then, that they don’t feel good about
themselves? That they are unhappy with
their looks, their natural body type and
breast size? Teenage girls today are
feeling more inadequate at earlier ages
than ever before.
The pressure to look good adds
mental stress. For some it manifests as
subtle thoughts of inadequacy, while for
others, as outright self rejection and self
hatred. Feeling a constant need to compete
and to strive to look like the movie
stars and models they see, young girls
are left feeling inadequate, hopeless and
depressed. Constantly striving to realize
the unobtainable image of “the beautiful
self,” they live with an ongoing sense of
not measuring up.
THE MIND-BODY LINK
When we don’t feel good about ourselves,
our negative feelings can actually
alter our body chemistry. Teens living in a
race for a perfection that can’t be won are
experiencing an increase of negative
emotions and related physiological
problems.
The field of psychoneuroimmunology
studies the interaction of emotions with
the nervous, endocrine and immune systems.
Extensive research on the hormonal
and immune effects of chronic
stress on humans reveals that feelings of
hopelessness and helplessness seem to
cause the most dramatic changes in
stress hormones (such as cortisol, oxytocin
and vasopressin), sex hormones
(androgens and estrogens) and immune
system functioning (changes in immune
cell numbers and ability to respond to an
infection). The connection between
one’s thoughts, emotions, physiological
responses and self-image is critical to
optimal health. The old adage, “A healthy
mind—a healthy body,” is true. How a
woman feels about herself is key not only
to her emotional but also to her physical
health.
SELF IMAGE AND HEALTH
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Dr. Akhter Ahsen, the leading theoretician
in the field of mental imagery, has
extensively researched the development
of a woman’s self image through interactions
with her parents and society. In his
book, Menstruation and Menopause: Imagery Therapeutics in Social Context,
Dr. Ahsen discusses how one’s self
image ultimately is critical to one’s
health. He describes how the manner in
which a woman is reared by her parents
and treated by the society around her
becomes biologically imprinted in her
brain, in special images called Eidetics.
Dr. Ahsen has spent the last 40 years
studying the links between the eidetic
images of one’s personal history, the corresponding
neurological and chemical
signals they emit and the formation of
symptoms in the body. His work is at the
forefront of mind-body research—that is,
the effect of an individual’s psychological
makeup on the individual’s physiology. In
other words, he connects one’s attitudes,
thoughts, emotions and personal history
to their effect on one’s psychosomatic
functioning.
The two most important and sensitive
times in girls’ development are the budding
of breasts and the onset of menstruation.
Ahsen discovered that the way
women are treated during these times is
critical to their identity as women. These
two events, and the subtle and overt
messages a young girl receives from the
world around her, strongly affect her
future self image and her feminine
health. Women who have had negative
experiences at these times have been
found to have stronger PMS symptoms,
such as cramping, bloating, labile emotional
states, headaches and insomnia.
Symptoms such as irregular menstrual
cycles, complete suppression of menstrual
cycles, heavy bleeding and ovarian cysts,
among many others, have been traced to
experiences at these critical times.
BUDDING BREASTS
When a girl first begins to develop
breasts, it signals a change in her body
and psyche. She is transitioning from
being a girl child to a woman. Not only
her body changing but also her view of her
self is changing. A new identity is
emerging within her. Her mind becomes
open to new possibilities, ripe with
nuances and intimations of becoming a
woman. The growing breasts contain
genetic signals connected to nurturing, as
the breast supplies milk. She senses that
in some way she is to become a mother,
either of a future child, or of new visions
and ideas for the world. She is open to the
next step of her evolution into woman. It
is a profoundly sensitive time.
Whether a girl is valued or demeaned
during this susceptible time is key in how
she will feel about herself in the future.
Whatever goes on around her forms
deeply in her psyche as an imprint of her
feminine identity. Do her peers make fun
of her growing breasts? Do the boys of
her age group make humiliating comments?
How do her siblings treat her?
How is her family responding to her
changes? What messages is she getting
from television and the world around her
about being a woman? Nature, which
controls her changing body, mind and
genetic signals, collides with our culture.
This clash is a ripe time for the impressions
that will later result in formation of
symptoms.
ONSET OF MENSTRUATION
The first time a girl menstruates is a
highly distinctive event in her life. It
marks her coming of age into womanhood.
She is now physiologically able to
bear children. Genetically and psychically,
her sexuality becomes connected to
giving birth. This event marks a powerful
change in her body and in her purpose.
Her body begins to go through a monthly
cycle of changing hormonal output,
which affects her mental and emotional
states. What occurs the first time she
menstruates becomes an imprint in her
mind for the rest of her menstruating life,
as she is incredibly sensitive and receptive
to the input of those around her.
Therefore, a true understanding of the
profound change that is occurring both
in her mind and body is needed. In this
modern world the meaning of this time is
not honored and its true understanding
is lost. Often it is merely seen as a medical
category in women’s reproductive
health.
The subtle and overt messages a girl
gets from her mother and from the significant people around her the first time
she menstruates will affect her attitude
toward her own feminine body and its
functions for the rest of her life. The
impact is very deep. Whether a mother
treats the event with celebration, neutrality
or shame will form a daughter’s
positive or negative sense of herself as a
woman. The imprint of the emotions of
that moment will affect the daughter’s
cycles and the extent to which she will
experience PMS symptoms. If a mother
celebrates the event and honors her
daughter’s emerging womanliness, her
daughter will also honor and celebrate
herself as a woman. When she menstruates,
these subtle feelings of pride
accompany the event and these, in turn,
affect the hormones and chemicals she
emits. Thus she experiences ease and
lack of problematic symptoms. On the
other hand, when a mother treats the
event with indifference or negativity, with
irritation, lack of interest or shame, the
message imparted to her daughter is that
becoming a woman is insignificant and
even negative. This negative message
creates stress for the daughter and each
time she menstruates this negative
trigger will stimulate cortisol and a host
of other stress and sex hormones,
causing PMS and many other problematic
gynecological symptoms.
THE SOLUTION
Since daughters unconsciously identify
with their mothers, all mothers have
tremendous power to shape their daughters’
self image. By teaching that a
woman’s value is not based solely on
outer looks but on her inner essence, by
talking to her daughter in sensitive ways
during the critical junctures of sexual
development, and by deep self love and
acceptance, a mother goes a long way to
ensure her daughter’s future mental,
emotional and physical health.
Psychotherapist Jaqueline Lapa
Sussman is the director for projects
for the National and International
Imagery Association and one of the
foremost practitioners of Eidetic
Imagery. She has delivered lectures
worldwide and has trained top-level
government officials, health care
providers, corporate CEOs, professional
athletes and university faculties.
She has been featured in Health
Magazine, First For Women, New Age
Journal, Woman, The Dallas Morning
News, The New York Post and
Newsday. She is the author of Images
of Desire: Finding Your Natural Sensual
Self In Today’s Image Filled Society
(Forge Books, May 2001) and
Freedom From Failure: How To
Discover The Secret Images That Can
Bring Success In Love, Parenthood,
Career, And Physical Well-Being (Forge
Books, March 2003).
Web site: www.jaquelinesussman.com
E-mail:
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