Description
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.
Everybody should read this book. World would be a better place if all understood their childhoods and stop to pass their traumatic experiences further without even knowing it. And they can discover their true self and free themselves from depressions, addictions… and be finally alive. Be their true self and enjoy it and their life.
Very interesting easy to read.
Gifted in this case means kids who are “different”. Excellent read. Well written.
My sister is a parent and counselor
Some of my favorite quotes from the book:
“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.