Surviving Ophelia

September 10, 2001
If there were any doubt that Mary Pipher's 1994 bestseller Reviving Ophelia
spawned a virtual cottage industry about teenage girls at risk, the latest Ophelia-related title by psychologist Dellasega (a clinician at Penn State's College of Medicine) lays it to rest. The book follows close on the heels of Ophelia's Mom
(Forecasts, June 25), Nina Shandler's response to her daughter Sara's 1999 bestseller, Ophelia Speaks. Both Dellasega and Shandler have chosen to use Sara Shandler's approach and collect various essays, but while Nina Shandler structured each chapter of her book around specific problems, such as drugs or school, Dellasega chooses a more sprawling, conversational approach. Her chapters discuss the types of responses that out-of-control daughters elicit in their mothers, from special mother-daughter moments to explosive anger and regret. Despite the uneven quality of the selections (they range from thoughtful to clichéd), they share a raw immediacy that may help other moms. In fact, Dellasega credits some of the pieces with giving her the courage to send her daughter, Ellen, to a "wilderness program" to overcome anorexia. Like the mother who penned the excerpt "Tears from a Rose," the contributors are women who have tried to do their best, even when that wasn't always enough. "What happens when you do everything as right as you can, and it all goes wrong?" she questions. Interwoven throughout are Dellasega's ongoing concerns about Ellen, now 17. While it's obvious that the author wrote the book to overcome her struggles with her own teenager, there are lessons here that will help every mother dealing with an adolescent daughter.