Elsewhere in these Amazon.com reviews, "A reader" claimed that, "For you to really use the material in this book, you must be willing to look into yourself and into your past. If your defense mechanisms are out in force (or if you don't realize that you even have defense mechanisms), then you will not be able to see what you have to do. (In fact, some of your defense mechnisms are there specifically to prevent access to the very content you need to get to.)
"A reader" nailed the problem. Last week I discovered, with the help of a therapist I recently started seeing, that my life is riddled with narcissistic patterns. When I asked if there was any literature I could read about "narcissism", I was dumbstruck when he said the best description is given in a series of books by someone named Alice Miller. When I went to a bookstore and leafed through the book I had already read several months previously, I was dumbstruck again to see the words "narcissism" and "grandiosity" and "depression" sprinkled through the pages. I had read the pages before, and I had thought I understood them, but they never really applied to me and I forgot them easily. I was in denial.
It's interesting that Miller's book was seemingly useless to me before an insightful therapist somehow made a crack in my defense mechanisms. However, I suspect that it was my first reading of Miller's book that propelled me into therapy (that led me back to the book). Now I wonder why a casual acquaintance loaned me that book in the first place. There seems to be more to the psyche than meets the eye. One wonders how far it goes.
On my first reading of "Gifted Child", I thought Miller seriously underestimated the potentially positive, and in some cases lifesaving, contributions to a person's growth attributable to social interactions beyond the immediate family or therapist. In general in "Gifted Child" as well as in "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware", Miller seemed to focus on destructive, cultish effects of social group interactions. I suspect that her ideas about social effects are incompletely developed and overly pessimistic. I base that suspicion on my own repeated interactions with ordinary people who willingly pay close attention to my words solely in order to understand my point of view, without passing judgement on me, and without being motivated by any overt or hidden agenda. That kind of interaction can be described as a "loving" one, in some sense, and I think Miller would not disagree. I suspect such interactions are not uncommon and are perhaps essential for both personal and societal health. We are a social species. I regret that Miller seems curiously unimpressed by that fact and uninterested in its implications. Childhood abuse is her main concern, and for excellent reasons. But a view of the world through pathologist's glasses can not be an unbiased view.
Before I read this book I suffered from constant emotional torture in my mind. Obsessing over and over again over things I could not control. Worrying needlessly over what other people thought of me. Feeling that I was absolutely worthless. I went to therapy for 5 years which helped me a bit. I also have read over 100 self-help books, pop psychology books, etc. NONE of them helped me. That was all until this book was recommended to me by a woman I know. After I read it, I have never seen myself the same way again. The understanding and COMPASSION I was so desperately searching for finally came to me in the form of this little book.
It taught me to acknowledge that ONLY AN ABUSED PERSON CAN ABUSE OTHERS. I am finally learning to have compassion for myself AND even for my abuser. But I also realize his abuse will continue if I ALLOW it to. Remember, most abuse is UNCONSCIOUS. Many times parents don't know they are doing it and even if they did they most likely would not take responsibility for it anyway. The reason is because their pain is so great to begin with. All they know how to do is continue the torturous, vicious cycle brought upon them starting in infancy - against their will. Most people cannot face the brutal pain they feel, lodged deep within, so they act it out in ways that can be so cruel and heartless.
Unless the pain and suffering inside gets acknowledged and FACED then no change can occur. But the key thing is that the person themself has to want to change. YOU CANNOT change your parents. They must want to do it. And the sad reality is, most of the time they WILL NOT. So we MUST ACCEPT THIS, MOURN, and MOVE ON. Because we CAN change OURSELVES. That is the only person we truly have control over. This book also helped me to realize that the past is long gone and dead. There is no retrieving it. But as adults we now have the ability to form our own lives and independence. To take back those chances to grow into who we are that was never offered to us. We are NOT those helpless toddlers anymore.
The book also talks about the CRUCIAL NEED for outlets to express this pain such as therapy as well as creative expressions like writing or art. If we do not accept and acknowledge what was done to us, we WILL pass the brutal exploitation we endured onto the innocent, helpless lives that we bring into this world.
Sometimes people are unhappy, but don't really want to know what they are unhappy about, or what caused their unhappiness or depression. They think they want to know, but if the truth starts to get too close, up go the defenses and denial. Read this book only if you are ready to face the truth, whatever the truth may be. This book states that only after you can face and accept realities about your childhood and upbringing, mourn for your losses and lost childhood, and how some needs can never be fulfilled because the time for them being met are long gone, can you really begin to live.
It would be nice if all therapists would read this book and others by Alice Miller. I also recommend "Reclaiming Your Life -A step-by-step guide to using regression therapy to overcome the effects of childhood abuse," by Jean Jenson, M.S.W.
Alice Miller has written one of the few vital psychoanalytic texts of our time. This book will be around forever: unlike some (arguably better, certainly more complex) theory, this book speaks clearly and makes sense to the average educated adult; and sadly, the problem of narcissistic parenting doesn't seem to be going away.
