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Title: The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self by Alice Miller ISBN: 0-465-01690-1 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: December, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.25 (44 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: This book changed the way I see myself, my past, and my life
Comment: If you feel that you have had controlling, obsessive, depressed, narcisistic parent(s) in any way, shape, or form you MUST give this book a chance if you are REALLY willing to change. After reading this, there was no more sweeping the dirt under the rug. It gave me the strength, courage, and the confidence to face and finally mourn the fact that I was emotionally abused and expoited by my father. It OPENED MY EYES to this fact: that I was never given a chance to be who I truly am. And knowing that comes from the ALLOWANCE TO FEEL ONE'S OWN FEELINGS. This book helped me to see that I could no longer allow myself to repress my feelings for the sake of "mommy or daddy's wishes." I realized the painful truth - that the chance to express my true feelings was ROBBED from me in my childhood over and over again by a parent who was exploited in the same way and unconsciously passed down what was done to him.
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.
Rating: 5
Summary: A very important book, insufficient by itself.
Comment: I read this book once, several months ago, and now I'm reading it again, more carefully. The first time, I found myself constantly fighting to continue reading in spite of what seemed to me to be Miller's unbearably arrogant self-righteousness. I fought my way past that, and past some of Miller's patently absurd opinions, because I believed in my gut that there was something extremely important to me (and to the world) buried in this stream of psychobabble. I found that Miller's concepts of childhood abuse and it's effects (and I mean childhood starting at one minute past-partum) were astoundingly insightful, although they didn't apply to me since my mother has always been unconditionally loving. I returned the book to the person who had recommended it and went on with my life as usual.
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.
Rating: 5
Summary: Illuminating
Comment: I thought this book was insightful, concise, and truly illuminating. It truly changed my perspective on aspects of narcissism, its manifestations, and treatment. If you are interested in reading a stimulating, no-nonsense treatment of these topics, this is it.
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