Rating: 
Summary: An Extremely Brave and Insightful Work
Review: I am on my second reading of "Drama" and am finding it even more riveting. It seems written for me personally. Miller takes on the reigning Freudian methodology with the heretical insight that even well-meaning parents can contribute to the suppression of their children's true selves. It is common knowledge that Freud initially determined that his "hysterical" female patients had often been sexually abused by men in positions of trust and power in their lives, but that the medical society of the time refused to believe this. In order to not be thrown out of the Viennese Medical Society, Freud came up with ingenious but destructive theories (Oedipal complex, etc.) to explain his patients' symptoms. Miller takes us back to the truth - that early childhood trauma and betrayal causes peculiarly destructive symptoms in adult life, and that the situation is further complicated by the psychological process of denial and suppression. The victims even feel positive about their tormentors, so that they can survive (the "Stockholm syndrome"). Miller relates this process to the now well-documented "post-traumatic stress syndrome", but argues that it is even more difficult to understand and undo when the trauma happens not to fully formed adults, but to pre-verbal children, who can only feel the pain, but cannot express its cause. The memories can be suppressed, but the feelings and their effects cannot be eradicated without witnessing them as an adult. This is a very liberating discovery for one who has been traumatized as a child, and leads to methods of recovery that provide hope for adult sufferers. Interestingly, in the preface to the 1994 edition, Miller enthusiastically credits the methods of J. Konrad Stettbacher with helping her overcome her own symptoms of childhood abuse. In the 1996 version, this forward is omitted, as is any reference to Stettbacher's work. I wonder if that is because Miller has changed her mind about his methods, or if there was some kind of proprietary struggle? In any event, "Drama" is a seminal work, and will likely reverberate in the psychotherapy community for a long time to come. A must-read for anyone struggling with the effects of their childhood - and who isn't? Give a copy to your shrink, your parents, your kids, your significant other...but be prepared for some interesting dinner conversations!
Rating:
Summary: A strong start to finding yourself and inner peace
Review: I have read this book and given it to others over the years so much that I have to keep buying copies.Alice Miller's books have helped me find a true path back through my life to who I was, how I became who I am. This is not a self help book with pointers, nor is it an easy read. Some people who read it and call it outdated or fluff, I feel sad for them that they could not see the wisdom in finding out who one really is inside. The book itself does not point you in a direction... is frees your mind to realize the direction you came from. It's amazing. I wish everyone in the world understood the value of Miller's writings... if people of the world found peace with who they are, the viscious cycles of humanity could end, and true happiness for our world could begin.
Rating:
Summary: there is hope
Review: I read this book ages ago, and have now sought to read it again. After going through years of psychoanalysis, self work and developing a true feeling of forgiveness towards my mother. (Five years after her death I finally can grieve her dying. When under tremendous stress, sleep deprivation, etc. the old tapes do play. One actively has to redirect your thoughts, but revisit momentarily to feel the hurt, sadness and anger so you can then let it go.
Rating:
Summary: Everyone should read this
Review: I read this book for the first time when I was a first-year in college back in 91'. This book resonated back then and I just fished it out of my childhood closest accidentally after visiting my mom last week. I was compelled to read it again, particularly because I remembered how the book affected me more than ten years ago. I also just read the updated book, and it is just as good as the original. It is really a must read for individuals who grew up with the pressure to succeed, whether self-inflicted or pressure from their parents. It's also important for parents to read this book. I gave my parents a copy more than 10 years ago and I look forward to reading it when I have children.
Rating:
Summary: Right material, right time
Review: I read this book in my youth at what ended up being just the right time. For me, Alice Miller's summation about gifted children and how they 'parent to protect' wasn't about blaming Mum. Its truths were instead an aha moment and putting shape to what can occur when the 'perfect achiever-child' suppresses his or herself as a caring mechanism. Quite the contrary to feeling like a victim, it was empowering ...providing impetus to begin anew and soar with conscious choice going forward. The book doesn't pretend to provide answers for everyone, or every situation. Ultimately, we must choose for ourselves.
Rating:
Summary: A very important book, insufficient by itself.
Review: 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:
Summary: Illuminating
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: A Poor Substitute for Religion.
Review: I was given this book by my psychologist to deal with my "so-called" manic depression. I trust science (the pills). I trust religion rooted in tradition. I don't trust Alice Miller. Sorry, but my existence requires more depth than blaming all the problems in the world and in my life on my parents, specifically my mother, and how they failed to live up to Miller's idealistic, goofy, and hockey expectations. She's peddling snake oil folks.
Rating:
Summary: Outdated and irrelevant
Review: I was very disappointed with this work. If you still subscribe to Freud's outdated theories, then this may be for you. Otherwise, you're better off reading works by newer researchers in the area of psychiatry/psychology. Im particular, I tend to respect those who combine elements of the cognitive, biological, learned behaviour, and psychoanalytic theories in their works. This book does little more than blame one's mother for the gamut of problems a human being goes through during life. This seems to me to be a highly narrow-minded and ill-informed approach. The human psyche is a complex phenomenon that cannot be explained with a single simplistic theory contained in a 150-page book.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing but the truth...
Review: I've worked with kids for 26 years, and I can't read this wonderful book without seeing dozens of faces attached to every sentence. These Rorshach-like reviews speak volumes on the depth of its insights; it has conjured up defenses and denials as well as testimony to its healing powers and teaching of truth. I read it every few years and each time I'm struck by how the books wisdom grows deeper as I become more able to see it and feel it. Quite accessible to lay persons, and a reminder of undiminished truth for even the most knowlegeable on children's issues.
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