Grandmotherland: Exploring the Myths and Realities

'This is an area ripe for exploration' - Hilary Mantel

How might we better understand our travels through Grandmotherland? In this lively exploration, an experienced child psychotherapist draws together a wide range of perspectives on the role and experience of grandmothers.

Judith Edwards looks back to the past and forward to the future, while being rooted in the reality of the modern grandmother's life. We meet 'good' grannies, 'bad' grannies, and all those in between, as well as women who decided to be agents of transmission in other ways than passing on their DNA.

Our guide looks at how the meme of the grandmother is affected by personality, culture, tradition and 'norms' and considers how psychoanalytic insights may help us understand this territory of life.

About the Author
Dr Judith Edwards is a retired consultant child and adolescent psychotherapist, previously at the Tavistock Clinic. She is a former editor of the Journal of Child Psychotherapy and has published her work in papers and academic books internationally. She is the author of Psychoanalysis and Other Matters and a memoir entitled Pieces of Molly: An Ordinary Life.