Linda N. Edelstein, PhD, is a writer and clinical psychologist in private practice in Illinois, and an Associate Professor at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology in Chicago. She lives in Evanston, Illinois and has two daughters.

• Relinquish the Old "Freedom Is Daily, Prose-Bound, Routine Remembering": An Overview of Midlife Creativity "The Terrible Weight of All This Unused Life": Relinquish the Old "Glowing Coals under Grey Ashes": Midlife "First It Was in Black and White and Then It Was in Color": Creativity and Insight Reconnect to the Self "She Must Braid Us All Together": The Psychology of Women "I Am Her Only Novel": Relationships with Parents and Their Dreams for Us "There's Still So Much I'd Like to See": How We Are Formed by Social Forces "Once You Are Real You Can't Be Ugly": Authenticity "Finding a Fortune in the Lining of an Old Coat": Aggression and Creativity "The Long Meandering Fingers of Ice Will Thicken": Problems in Creative Living Refocus the Future "Life Shrinks or Expands in Proportion to One's Courage": Finding Courage "Don't Dream It, Be It": Turning Points "I Have a Brain and a Uterus and I Use Both": Women and Work "Let the Beauty You Love Be What You Do": Achievements and Dreams Bibliography Index

"The author provides and excellent review of the tasks and opportunities inherent in the middle years of a woman's life. She uses an elegant theoretical model to describe the process of change at this stage and richly illustrates it with numerous clinical vignettes and marvelous literary references, chosen with particular aptness that makes them linger in the reader's consciousness. . . . Written in a user-friendly manner, the book is not only a valuable resource in terms of providing information and validation to midlife women, but is also a useful tool for those male clinicians still pondering what a woman wants. Finally, it is well indexed and has a comprehensive, diverse, interesting bibliography that encourages rather than overwhelms." - Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic