Reviving Ophelia : Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
- Book Review,
by Mary Pipher
Amazon.com
At adolescence, says Mary Pipher, "girls become 'female impersonators' who fit their whole selves into small, crowded spaces." Many lose spark, interest, and even IQ points as a "girl-poisoning" society forces a choice between being shunned for staying true to oneself and struggling to stay within a narrow definition of female. Pipher's alarming tales of a generation swamped by pain may be partly informed by her role as a therapist who sees troubled children and teens, but her sketch of a tougher, more menacing world for girls often hits the mark. She offers some prescriptions for changing society and helping girls resist.
From Publishers Weekly
From her work as a psychotherapist for adolescent females, Pipher here posits and persuasively argues her thesis that today's teenaged girls are coming of age in "a girl-poisoning culture." Backed by anecdotal evidence and research findings, she suggests that, despite the advances of feminism, young women continue to be victims of abuse, self-mutilation (e.g., anorexia), consumerism and media pressure to conform to others' ideals. With sympathy and focus she cites case histories to illustrate the struggles required of adolescent girls to maintain a sense of themselves among the mixed messages they receive from society, their schools and, often, their families. Pipher offers concrete suggestions for ways by which girls can build and maintain a strong sense of self, e.g., keeping a diary, observing their social context as an anthropologist might, distinguishing between thoughts and feelings. Pipher is an eloquent advocate. Psychotherapy Book Club selection; BOMC and QPB alternates. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Pipher writes from a dual perspective: that of a clinical psychologist who has been counseling girls for more than 20 years and of a mother of a teenaged daughter. Her report is frightening. Girls reaching adolescence in the 1990s must thread their way through a maze of difficult and sometimes life-threatening decisions about alcohol, sex, drugs, weight, and interests. Girls receive mixed messages from society about how to look, act, and feel, Pipher asserts, even though they are not intellectually ready to make decisions of this magnitude. As a result, depression, eating disorders, addiction, and suicide are increasing at an alarming rate. Pipher offers some practical suggestions and strategies for parents to help girls into adulthood with their sense of self intact. She also sounds a wake-up call to parents, urging them to become involved in the lives of their daughters and to change the societal pressures that push girls into crisis situations. This clear, compassionately written work, read by the author, is recommended for most libraries.Joanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Coll. of Continuing Education Lib., ProvidenceCopyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Publishers Weekly
With sympathy and focus she cites case histories to illustrate the struggles required of adolescent girls to maintain a sense of themselves...Pipher offers concrete suggestions for ways by which girls can build and maintain a strong sense of self.
Los Angeles Times
An important book...Pipher shines high-beam headlights on the world of teenage girls.
From Kirkus Reviews
Clinical psychologist Pipher turns her attention to female adolescence in contemporary America. Pipher examines not just the girls themselves but the society they inhabit, which she terms ``girl-poisoning.'' Looking at why a generation of girls who ought to have benefited from the women's movement are losing rather than gaining self-esteem as they become women, she takes on divorce, eating disorders, self-mutilation, sexual pressure, and MTV, among other things. She also posits that intelligent girls are more prone to depression because they are more aware of their surroundings and therefore more aware of the new constraints they face as they leave childhood. Pipher integrates literature, memoirs, and memories of her own adolescence and that of her daughter; she also has a deft way of summing up psychological phenomena in layperson's terms, as when she dubs the changes that girls go through ``a social and developmental Bermuda Triangle.'' The summaries of her own sessions with adolescent girls add liveliness as well. Some of the patients have laserlike insight into their own situations, like the depressed 15-year-old who muses that at her age ``[a]ll five hundred boys want to go out with the same ten anorexic girls.' '' Serious and thoughtful material presented with the fluidity of good fiction--sure to appeal to parents, teachers, and anyone interested in modern American culture. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
“An important book . . . Pipher shines high-beam headlights on the world of teenage girls.”
–Los Angeles Times
“A vibrant and insightful account . . . The loss of the spirit which Dr. Pipher so brilliantly portrays is the loss of the American spirit.”
–DR. NATALIE PORTER
Former president, Division of the Psychology of Women,
American Psychological Association
From the Paperback edition.
Review
?An important book . . . Pipher shines high-beam headlights on the world of teenage girls.?
?Los Angeles Times
?A vibrant and insightful account . . . The loss of the spirit which Dr. Pipher so brilliantly portrays is the loss of the American spirit.?
?DR. NATALIE PORTER
Former president, Division of the Psychology of Women,
American Psychological Association
From the Paperback edition.
Book Description
Why are more American adolescent girls prey to depression, eating disorders, addictions, and suicide attempts than ever before? According to Dr. Mary Pipher, a clinical psychologist who has treated girls for more than twenty years, we live in a look-obsessed, media-saturated, "girl-poisoning" culture. Despite the advances of feminism, escalating levels of sexism and violence--from undervalued intelligence to sexual harassment in elementary school--cause girls to stifle their creative spirit and natural impulses, which, ultimately, destroys their self-esteem. Yet girls often blame themselves or their families for this "problem with no name" instead of looking at the world around them.
Here, for the first time, are girls' unmuted voices from the front lines of adolescence, personal and painfully honest. By laying bare their harsh day-to-day reality, Reviving Ophelia issues a call to arms and offers parents compassion, strength, and strategies with which to revive these Ophelias' lost sense of self.
From the Inside Flap
Why are more American adolescent girls prey to depression, eating disorders, addictions, and suicide attempts than ever before? According to Dr. Mary Pipher, a clinical psychologist who has treated girls for more than twenty years, we live in a look-obsessed, media-saturated, "girl-poisoning" culture. Despite the advances of feminism, escalating levels of sexism and violence--from undervalued intelligence to sexual harassment in elementary school--cause girls to stifle their creative spirit and natural impulses, which, ultimately, destroys their self-esteem. Yet girls often blame themselves or their families for this "problem with no name" instead of looking at the world around them.
Here, for the first time, are girls' unmuted voices from the front lines of adolescence, personal and painfully honest. By laying bare their harsh day-to-day reality, Reviving Ophelia issues a call to arms and offers parents compassion, strength, and strategies with which to revive these Ophelias' lost sense of self.
From the Back Cover
“An important book . . . Pipher shines high-beam headlights on the world of teenage girls.”
–Los Angeles Times
“A vibrant and insightful account . . . The loss of the spirit which Dr. Pipher so brilliantly portrays is the loss of the American spirit.”
–DR. NATALIE PORTER
Former president, Division of the Psychology of Women,
American Psychological Association
From the Paperback edition.
About the Author
Dr. Mary Pipher is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Lincoln, Nebraska. She teaches part-time at the University of Nebraska and is also a commentator for Nebraska Public Radio.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Reviving Ophelia is my attempt to understand my experiences in therapy with adolescent girls. Many girls come into therapy with serious, even life-threatening problems, such as anorexia or the desire to physically hurt or kill themselves. Others have problems less dangerous but still more puzzling, such as school refusal, underachievement, moodiness, or constant discord with their parents. Many are victims of sexual violence.
As I talked to these girls, I became aware of how little I really understood the world of adolescent girls today. It didn't work to use my own adolescent experience from the early 1960s to make generalizations. Girls were living in a whole new world....
Even in our small city with its mostly middle-class population, girls often experienced trauma. How could we help girls heal from that trauma? And what could we do to prevent it?
This last year I have struggled to make sense of this. Why are girls having more trouble now than my friends and I had when we were adolescents? Many of us hated our adolescent years, yet for the most part we weren't suicidal and we didn't develop eating disorders, cut ourselves, or run away from home....
But girls today are much more oppressed. They are coming of age in a more dangerous, sexualized, and media-saturated culture. They face incredible pressures to be beautiful and sophisticated, which in junior high means using chemicals and being sexual. As they navigate a more dangerous world, girls are less protected.
As I looked at the culture that girls enter as they come of age, I was struck by what a girl-poisoning culture it was. The more I looked around, the more I listened to today's music, watched television and movies and looked at sexist advertising, the more convinced I became that we are on the wrong path with our daughters. America today limits girls' development, truncates their wholeness, and leaves many of them traumatized....
What can we do to help them? We can strengthen girls so that they will be ready. We can encourage emotional toughness and self-protection. We can support and guide them. But most important, we can change our culture. We can work together to build a culture that is less complicated and more nurturing, less violent and sexualized and more growth-producing. Our daughters deserve a society in which all their gifts can be developed and appreciated. I hope this book fosters a debate on how we can build that society for them.
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