Grandmotherland

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

Dr Judith Edwards is a retired consultant child and adolescent psychotherapist. Previously she taught and supervised 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. In 2010, she was awarded the Jan Lee Memorial Prize for Analysis and the Arts. She is the author of Psychoanalysis and Other Matters and a memoir entitled Pieces of Molly: An Ordinary Life.