The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self, Third Edition | Alice Miller

The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self, Third Edition | Alice Miller | Finding the true self and then becoming it

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The Drama of the G...

	The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self, Third Edition Alice Miller Basic Books, 1996 - 144 pages average customer review:based on 76 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Why are many of the most successful people plagued by feelings of emptiness and alienation? This wise and profound book has provided thousands of readers with an answer?and has helped them to apply it to their own lives.Far too many of us had to learn as children to hide our own feelings, needs, and memories skillfully in order to meet our parents? expectations and win their ?love.? Alice Miller writes, ?When I used the word ?gifted? in the title, I had in mind neither children who receive high grades in school nor children talented in a special way. I simply meant all of us who have survived an abusive childhood thanks to an ability to adapt even to unspeakable cruelty by becoming numb? Without this ?gift? offered us by nature, we would not have survived.? But merely surviving is not enough. The Drama of the Gifted Child helps us to reclaim our life by discovering our own crucial needs and our own truth.

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A Significant Piece of the Puzzle

Reading books about psychology, especially books dealing with childhood trauma, is a bit like looking into a shattered mirror. Some parts will accurately reflect aspects of one's own psyche; other parts will be too distorted to have any relevance. As far as mirrors go, I think Alice Miller's "The Drama of the Gifted Child" provides for excellent viewing.

The core of the book is about narcissism, or more precisely, the way that children are negatively affected by the emotional unavailability and/or abuse of their parents. These emotional wounds can create severe dysfunctions and personality disorders later in life - disorders over which the victim has absolutely no control, unless they begin the long and painful road towards breaking out of their "Inner Prison" (as Miller puts it).

Early editions of this book used a lot more psychological jargon, and the revised edition makes things quite clear and concise for the layman, without losing the essential concepts: the role and critical responsibility of the primary object (usually mother); the suppression/repression of feelings in favour of a need to please; the cycles of grandiosity and depression; contempt and its role in perversion and obsession; compulsion to repeat behaviours; the societal role in propagating psychologically diseased values through generations; the severe shortcomings of tradition psychotherapeutic methods (although this was first published in 1979), and the key to healing - consciously experiencing hidden emotional pain.

The case studies and quotes from patients are relevant and add an extra dimension to the theory. I found that some of the examples struck a stronger emotional chord than Miller's own observations, which is important if one is reading a book to gain insight rather than for simple curiosity.

Although a short book at approximately 126 pages, there is very little "fluff" or filling in it. Miller gets straight to the point and has little patience for "parental apologia", which is an approach I think needs to be taken. It seems from other reviews though that some parents bought the book thinking it would affirm their own notions of their child's "giftedness", and were a little "miffed" to find out that wasn't the case. In my opinion, parents like these are the exact reason professionals like Miller need to focus the lens directly on their behaviour.

While it is somewhat of a cliché these days to blame one's parents for one's neuroses, that isn't really the point; responsibility for healing rests with the victim, not the perpetrator. This is something Miller makes clear, although the point is better made in other books, notably Martha Stout's "The Myth of Sanity: Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness".

That the book is now still in print and in its 3rd revision is a testament to its long-term appeal. Despite having read it twice now, I still find revisits to be enlightening and worthwhile. I am very glad to have it on my bookshelf and consider it money well spent.

Readers with a deep interest in the subject may also find "The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and Treatment", "Why Is It Always About You? : The Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism", "Unholy Hungers: Encountering the Psychic Vampire in Ourselves & Others" and the previously mentioned "Myth of Sanity" to be excellent sources of additional information.

Overall, an immensely valuable work and I thank Ms. Miller for her long-term efforts in sharing such important knowledge with the wider public.

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Finding the true self and then becoming it

This book is written with very deep insight, compassion, eloquence, clarity and power. Alice Miller speaks of the vital importance for us to discover our own personal truth that puts us in touch with our true self. As Ms. Miller states it can be very painful to discover our real feelings since many of us have repressed hurt feelings from childhood trauma that we have buried and we have hid these feelings not only from our parents but from ourselves as well.

What I have learned from this remarkable book is that we hide these feelings from our parents so they will `love' us, but it's not our true self that they love since it is these hidden feelings that are the manifestations of who we really are. In its place we give our parents an image of ourselves so as to make them happy. This fulfills their needs but we hide our own since we fear that the expression of our own needs will lead to parental rejection and correspondingly to a loss of their love.

When we hide and suppress these childhood unacknowledged needs then the basis of all our future relationships will be determined by these unrequited needs and they become the unconscious motivations that drive us throughout our adult lives.

It is only by getting in touch with these lost needs that we can begin to discover those missing parts of ourselves. This is just the beginning to true "self discovery" that is, it is the beginning to discovering and becoming who we truly are so that, eventually, we can become who we are truly destined to be.

A fine book indeed.

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always there

I read this book for the first time when it was first published and it had a great impact on me and on understanding how I had grown. It was painful but at the same time healing. I continue reading it and it continues having those characteristics. Thanks

Great book w good examples

Alice Miller explains how a lot of us have been affected from childhood. The book flows well and is a page turner when you see that a lot of the situations relate to you in some way. I highly recommend it to anyone who is looking to improve themselves!

Another tiny view in the quest for freedom from self

Dr. Alice Miller takes us on a journey from her subtley unique perspective, of the thoughts and programs that enslave us all. This easy to read book sheds much needed light on the crippling mindsets we inherit from our upbringing. These mindsets lead to a bewildering array of behaviors and automatic responces that baffle, hurt and enslave us and the ones closest to us. A good read.

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