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This bestselling book examines childhood trauma and the enduring effects of repressed anger and pain.
Why are many of the most successful people plagued by feelings of emptiness and alienation? This wise and profound book has provided millions 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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"Oppression and the forcing of submission do not begin in the office, factory or political party; they begin in the very first weeks of an infant's life."
"Nationalism, racism, and fascism are in fact nothing other than ideological guises of the flight from painful, unconscious memories of endured contempt into the dangerous, destructive, disrespect for human life, glorified as a political program."
An invaluable resource on understanding childhood trauma.
Childhood.
I wanted to address the negative reviews:
These types of books require prerequisite knowledge. For example, I read The Family prior to reading this book so I'm able to layer my knowledge. Before reading that, I did a lot of research online. You won't be able to get a lot out of the book if you don't expose yourself to this information before. This is not a beginner book.
So far what I've read covers your behavior, why you do what you do. Making the unconscious conscious is one of the most important things you can do for yourself. This is the first step of the healing process. Without this, you can't heel. Several people were concerned about heeling, without really understanding what that means.
This book requires you to be really honest yourself. Not everyone is psychologically capable of going there. So this book isn't for everyone.
The book is about caretakers of the child, not just *the mother* - it's really interesting that people are criticizing the author for this. They're fixated on a surface level issue which is causing them to be unable to go deeper. Same with people criticizing the title of the book... it's laughable.
It really takes the theory of attachment into a very serious place, where some self-help style books give descriptions that seem more for those already convinced. Miller's writing is so straightforward that it helps get by the stigma of our times -- that our parents are to be respected even when they're not respectable people.
I've read it multiple times and will read it again I'm sure. Amazing.
I really enjoyed this read, though it was a bit tedious at times. An understanding of psychoanalytic theory (Freud, Jung) was a great help.
The people who wrote complaining reviews are missing the point — in order to heal, you have to embrace the hurt first. Then, like a snake, you metaphorically shed that skin.
Also, the people dissing this book are all very in denial and their reviews seem to come from rigid “black and white” thinking. No one had perfect parents. This isn’t about demonizing your parents but rather recovering from their shortcomings. This about taking responsibility for your own healing. But some people would rather stay in their discomfort and misery than face the music — I suppose they figure the devil they know is better than the devil they don’t.
The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom
, which all about the nature side of the equation.
If I have one criticism it's that she stops short of talking about how to proceed in this process of feeling the crucial feelings, clarifying them etc.....I suppose she would say that's what therapy is for.
But good luck finding a competent one even if you can afford it.
Alice describes me and my life perfectly in this book. It was really amazing to read and identify with so much of what she said. Almost everything she talks about was something I hadn't thought of before--at least in the way she explains things. There was also one thing she explains that I have had a profound experience with, that I have never heard of anyone else experiencing. It was amazing to hear that what I had experienced and worked through is actually common.
One thing I could never understand about myself was why I still have low self-esteem. Intellectually, I can see why I (or anyone for that matter) should have self-esteem. I had read many books and done work in therapy specifically for this issue, but it still remained a complete mystery for me.
The ideas in this book have given me the tools to become my "true self" and get that self-esteem I have always lacked. I admit that I have only just finished reading the book and have yet to do most of the work involved in this, but I feel incredibly confident that this is what I have been missing (for me with these type of therapeutic and self-revelations, you know when something speaks to you like this). I now have a plan for working through this issue and I feel confident I now know what has been holding me back.
I can't recommend this book highly enough. I've already purchased another one of Alice's books and I hope it is as helpful for me as this one has been.
What a relief when Alice was describing feelings and experiences. It's like she was seeing through the eyes of my childhood! What a moment! I wept with tears of joy. The feeling of simply being seen, felt, and validated is one that cannot be put into words. This book gave me the hope and courage to press on. Thanks to Alice Miller, and her work upon the planet, I can happily move forward reconnecting with the lost self within. What a gift!
Please honor yourself by picking up this book. Anyone who struggles with their life and pain, this book could a real life changer!
I gathered more insight from "Will I Ever Be Good Enough?" which deals strictly with narcissistic mothers as it's directed totally to the daughters of narcissists rather than their therapists.
This book was written in 1980 and remains one of the most revealing and revolutionary works on our perception and understanding of psychological issues of Narcissism and issues of conditional, manipulated and draining emotional ties so many of us experience growing up shaping our mind sets for the rest of our adult life.
Love is the answer to everything, but there are so many different kinds of love - which one is true?
To understand yourself and your past, to help build strong future with and for yourself, to leave the baggage behind and start living with your true self and your surroundings, to be a better mother and a child - this book gives you what you need.
You don't have to agree with everything Alice Miller writes in this book, you might have a different opinion, but first you have to have one - this book will help you form it.
It is truly heart and eye opening. It will change the way you feel about yourself, the way you love.
There is a price though - it will hurt, which is necessary in the process of lifting the suppressed disillusionment and repression of self, to finally stop living in denial and start living in honesty and power.
Wishing you courage and strength!
Iva
The main thing I got from the book was that when you are overly upset by something in your current life, you should look back to the root cause and remember why you are super sensitive to it. You will find something in your childhood that predisposed you to being annoyed with this issue. And that you shouldn't immediately dismiss it as something that was in the past. You should remember the situation(s) and acknowledge the pain that you had then. And connect the pain to that childhood frustration. And that would help you grow and be less angry and hurt in the present.
I found the book to be informative and it left me with the desire to read it again. I feel I will have to "study" the book rather than simply read the book. Do not be discouraged to read/study the book, it is worth the read.
It's not about being the perfect parent, child, adult, etc. This is about making conscious decisions in every aspect of our lives. Acknowledging our past, present, and future. I didn't purchase this book to turn around and point fingers at my family and friends; and yet you find yourself reading this book and wanting to establish some clear theories about what's right and wrong.
It was a helpful book. It helped me deal with the truth. How many books can you say that about?
and this is how i felt (and still feel) after having read it (just finished it at 2 am this morning).
the premise of the book is that what we are not aware of, rules (destroys) our lives.
the trauma of being mistreated, manipulated, ridiculed or just ignored in the first days / years of our lives by adults we depended on for our existence gets stored in our bodies and it conditions us not only to neurosis, but also to taking it out on the first available weaker person -usually our children.
it also claims that thanks to the way we are brought up and "loved" by our (own screwed up and wounded) caretakers conditionally, for what we do and how we behave and not for who we are (for the fact we exist), we tend to deny parts of ourselves that the caretakers wish to expunge. we mould ourselves according to what we think they want, and lose ourselves in the process.
as adults, we keep carrying the feeling of inadeqacy and unworthiness and experience it as depression or grandiosity (in which no achievement really is enough for us to start valuing ourselves so we keep pushing for more, just to keep the depression and worthlessness at bay).
some children, on the other hand, "kill" their own emotions and feelings, in order to keep their caretaker's love.
in all cases children take the "blame and shame" for their "inadequacies" and idealize the parents or caretakers who inflicted the wounds.
at times, reading this book, i would remember the fact that i too remember nothing of my childhood, except that it was "idilic". or was it? repression of memories and feelings can go straight into almost complete amnesia.
i also thought of a few people i know, whose parents are strict and cold, who display very little emotion, but go thru life sucking love out of other people only to discard them when they get it.
i would remember how i sometimes lash out at my son, like his being a child is a crime.. the same way i was loved for my achievements, i sometimes get demanding on him and show discontent when he does not comply.
i thought of my son's difficult birth and 6 days in ER, without me, all alone. and i want to scream :(
this book hit me like a hammer.
i hope i read it on time. everyone should do the same, if not for their own sake, then for sake of their innocent children.
oh, and one more thing: sentences are so damn long and sometimes barely comprehensible. the translation could have been done more in the spirit of english language.
I have one academic critique: I suggest that many therapists are still holding onto unidentified and unresolved parental issues not only because they are so deeply afraid of their parents, but because they are so horribly afraid of BEING INADEQUATE PARENTS. I think we're up against something very biological here, the incredible drive to be good parents (I can only speak to this based on observation; I fortunately live in a time where I was able to choose not to have children that I would subsequently screw up with my own profound mental illness), hence the depth and entrenchment of the taboo against deep and close examination and criticism of the damage that parents do, accidental and otherwise.
This slim, impassioned, almost poetic volume has revolutionized my life already, and it has been only 24 hrs since I completed reading it for the first of what will be many times. I can also understand why some people would want to set it on fire.
Read it and decide for yourself. May it give you as much strength and hope in your struggle as it has given me. I am about to buy another 5 copies to distribute to friends.
If so, you can very much benefit from this book. It can make clear issues that are painful and difficult to look at (for us survivors). And you are NOT alone! We are not alone.
If you are doing therapy, the book can help you to more quickly process through. It has for me.
There is clarity most literature in the "field" of psychology lacks. However, you really need grounding in psychoanalytic theory to fully understand what Alice is talking about.
If you lack that understanding, the book could be frustrating in places.
With that kind of background this book is beautiful and cuts through the psychobabble so often trouted as wisdom by those hiding from their own shadows.
God bless your seeking, and enjoy!