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Summary: This book changed the way I see myself, my past, and my life
Review: 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.
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Summary: The best psychological book I have ever read
Review: It is not only the content that is excellent but also her writing style. It is objective and not sentimental like lots of books on psychological topics. It reveals repetitive patterns that you learnt during childhood and that you pass on to your children and also experience it with your partner. Most people have a kind of "dark room" where they unconsciously hide negative feelings that only their children will experience. The only critical point is I do not believe that psychoanalysis is the only way of solving these problems, I am sure that other treatments do help as well. Anyway, a fantastic book, I nearly read it four times.
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Summary: The Death of the True Self
Review: It is rare to read about abuse and trauma and their life-long consequences in poetic prose. Alice Miller writes as though she has experienced the slow death of the True Self that comes with all forms of abuse - from beatings and berating to smothering and doting. Indispensable. Sam Vaknin, author of 'Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited'.
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Summary: Not for Sissies
Review: It took me a month to read this little book, not because it was boring, but because I could only read small portions at a time. I had to stop and think about what I had read before I could continue. I have read many, many self-help books in my life, but this is one of a very few books that hit right between the eyes, and grabbed my heart. Sometimes people are unhappy, but don't really want to know what they are unhappy about, or what caused their unhappiness or depression. They think they want to know, but if the truth starts to get too close, up go the defenses and denial. Read this book only if you are ready to face the truth, whatever the truth may be. This book states that only after you can face and accept realities about your childhood and upbringing, mourn for your losses and lost childhood, and how some needs can never be fulfilled because the time for them being met are long gone, can you really begin to live. It would be nice if all therapists would read this book and others by Alice Miller. I also recommend "Reclaiming Your Life -A step-by-step guide to using regression therapy to overcome the effects of childhood abuse," by Jean Jenson, M.S.W.
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Summary: A classic in serious need of revision
Review: Miller clearly states in her 1990 preface that her entire psychological orientation has radically changed since writing this book. Yet, she has opted to leave Drama in its original form. Considering the constrictions "orthodox" psychoanalytic theory place on thought, I would love to see the drama free of these colorings. Be that as it may, virtually every first-born baby boomer can profit from this book! Our fathers were largely absent. Our mothers were forced into social straightjackets that stunted their humanity. The false selves this environment produced has left a legacy of emotional pain that continues to fuel the therapy industry. As Miller contends, our only hope lies in "the emotional discovery and emotional acceptance of the truth in the individual and unique history of our childhood." This book calls us to this historical, and personal, task.
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Summary: Excellent but painful - not to be taken lightly
Review: Miller has created a work that reaches into the soul and guides the reader through innermost (sometimes forgotten) memories and details of early life. By showing very clearly how gifted children are often relegated to that back burner of the family because of their own innate self-sufficiency, she paints a vivid picture of unconscious, conditioned manipulation and a common lack of emotional maturity in the part of the parents. The child is essentially denied a self of its own, as the needs of the parent are always paramount. WARNING: This book is powerful and extremely insightful, but not the informational or educational manual you might expect from the title--it is very personal, and is likely to evoke unexpectedly strong emotions. Several people saw me with the book over a course of a few months, and immediately thought it would be for them: "Oh, I should read that--I have three gifted children!". I found myself almost discouraging their interest, as they clearly were looking for validation of this statement, not actual insight. The content of this book is extremely powerful and can be a painful experience, especially for a reader who finds himself relating to the content but not ready to face their own reality. Although it is certainly a classic, it is not a book to be offered capriciously to friends and acquaintances--a casual recommendation may be detrimental to your relationship with the unsuspecting victim. In my case, my role as peacemaker and surrogate caregiver in the family left me with an overall sense of personal worthlessness and confusion about my own reactions to the events of my adult life. Not having been allowed true feelings of my own through my childhood, I found myself lost in a sea of immature emotions once separated from the needs of both of my parents. Miller herself has identified one of the basic problems of her approach: she views the mother as the most probable source of this type of emotional manipulation, as the mother is traditionally the primary caregiver in very early childhood. But if read with a deliberate awareness that both parents (present or not) are involved in the panorama of childhood experience, a more balanced reading will yield surprisingly sharp images and a keener understanding of one's formative years. I found myself reading it in small bursts, as some sections resonated so keenly that I had to put the words away for a while to ruminate. But I always came back, as it helped me examine closely some things about myself that I truly had not realized, and has helped me resolve some issues that have caused me continued anger and distress. The work inspired by this book has left me feeling more capable of identifying my true feelings in times of stress, and I feel that the insight into my true self will help me as I continue to grow.
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Summary: Specific insights for hard-to-acknowledge problems
Review: Miller's book is concise and straightforward, asserting that parental expectations for children--however benign or well-meaning--inevitably suppress the child's real self, leading to the ongoing "dramatic" performance of an identity throughout the child's life that is not driven by his/her own feelings. The lists of common behaviors that might be signs of this drama are helpful, and provoke moments of self-recognition that can be both painful and illuminating. My one reservation about Miller's argument is that this suppression of children's true selves is often demonstrated using examples of truly abusive parents, including several accounts of incest and violence. This undermines her overall understanding of the drama tendency as an almost universal property of family life.
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Summary: Wheat & chaff
Review: On the one hand, I'm grateful to this book for opening my eyes to a valuable perspective--this was my first book on narcissism in child rearing. On the other, as a skeptical person I could have benefited more had the author adopted a different style or tone, plus there's definitely at least one way in which she goes off the deep end--i.e. by accepting "recovered memories," such as in the case of her patient who "remembered" being raped at age 3 months by parents and their friends. Generally the author strikes me as a less than a critical or skeptical observer, and because she imputes enormous power and importance to her theory (e.g. Nazism and by implication WWII would never have happened if only Germans had been more sensitive as parents), this makes me view her as even more partisan. The book also has a couple distracting oddities: One is that often it very clearly presumes the reader is a therapist (suggesting the author recycled the text from another use without thoroughly adapting it). Also the author employs an extremely awkward convention of using "mother" to mean either parent--unreasonably expecting the reader to be able to bear this ever in mind--and switches dizzyingly between "he" and "she" according to context; i.e. whether she is discussing the behavior of an individual as a patient or therapist or parent. Anyway, as my first book on the subject I found it worthwhile and appreciated that it was brief. Apparently Al Gore describes this as his favorite book. Makes you wonder.
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Summary: True insight doesn't require many words or jargon
Review: The shortest and best book I've read on the subject of childhood trauma. This book is controversial because it is terrifying to admit that love can be lied about. If you prefer to mask raw emotion and grief with intellectual diversions or chemicals, this book is not for you.
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Summary: Defines the problem well, but blaming is counterproductive
Review: The title essay of this book well describes a far too common problem among gifted (intellectually, artistically, or emotionally) children. Because of their quick perceptions and sensitivity, they are deeply attuned to others' wishes, needs, and expectations, and tend to structure their lives around those rather than following the guidance of their "true selves." From my own experience, I completely agree with Miller's description of the problem, and of what in the child's psychological makeup leads to its occurrence. But I part company with her when she places the blame for the child's problems solely on "narcissistic parents." While such parents undoubtedly exist, I think that most parents are sincerely trying to do what's right for their children; they do harm out of ignorance or misguided beliefs rather than deliberate cruelty. For instance, a gifted child may be taught to belittle his/her gifts because the parent believes "humility" is important, not because he/she is selfishly trying to crush the child's spirit. Rather than blaming parents, I think it's more productive to acknowledge their desire to raise their children right, and educate them about the ways in which they may be unconsciously causing harm. And it's far more positive for an adult who recognizes this problem in him/herself to take action to honor the "true self," rather than getting hung up on "what my parents did wrong" and sinking into a victim mentality.
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