Daughter praising, mother bashing: a case study from Hong Kong

In this paper, we present the case of a mother and daughter in family therapy. We call for a critical examination of Western literature that describes how a mother praises her child. I illustrate how one observer (the first author) perceives the issue of maternal praise differently from other observers. To illustrate the interaction between this family and the family therapist (the second author), some representative vignettes of the sixth session have been extracted for discussion. Ten observers from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, 7 of whom were master's students and 3 were doctoral students, observed the therapy sessions from the adjoining room. The article is composed of four parts: (a) parental styles and relationships in families with an anorectic daughter literature review; (b) vignettes of the sixth family therapy session; (c) the observers' comments about the therapist; and (d) discussion. The paper concludes with a question of whether the impact of praise on a child's development in Western society functions in the same way and produces the same effects on a child's development as it does in Chinese society.