Therapist To Discuss Wives’ ‘Loss of Self’ at WHS, 4/30

Why women experience a loss of self in marriage and what can be done about it will be the subject of a talk April 30 at the Westport Historical Society by Dalma Heyn, a Westport psychotherapist who has spent years treating women for depression.

Heyn will discuss what she calls “Matrimorphosis: The Emotional Transformation of Women Into Wives.” Her topic is an outgrowth of her many conversations with married women who said they didn’t “feel like ‘me’ anymore” and “how flawed they felt next to that ‘perfect wife’ they believed they should be.”

This perfect wife, Heyn says, was the creation of the Industrial Revolution, which replaced a farm-based way of life with a manufacturing economy that sent men to work in factories and confined women to the home. Women were expected to be virtuous and good and the moral overseers of the family, and this prescribed character was the subject of numerous conduct books for women. The result, Heyn says, was that wives came to feel a loss of self and began to fuse pleasing with pleasure.

Today, even though women play different roles, with many having both families and careers, they still have “an internalized list of ‘shoulds’ inherited from the Industrial Revolution,” and it is this, Heyn says, that contributes to a higher incidence of depression among today’s wives than their husbands.

A graduate of the University of Southern California, where she studied English and psychology, Heyn has worked as a magazine editor and as a sex and advice columnist. She is also a best-selling author whose titles include “The Erotic Silence of the American Wife.” In 2001, she received a Master’s of Social Work degree from New York University and began a new career as a psychotherapist. 

Heyn’s talk is being sponsored by Catamount Wealth Management of Westport as part of its initiative to give women the clarity and confidence to manage their financial affairs, according to Catamount associate Laurie Stefanowicz. The program will include a catered reception by Dash of Salt.

“Matrimorphosis: The Emotional Transformation of Women Into Wives,” Thursday, April 30, 6:30-8:30 p.m. There is a $10 donation, and reservations are suggested: (203) 222-1424. Westport Historical Society, 25 Avery Place, across from Town Hall. For more information about the WHS: www.westporthistory.org.