Prisoners of Childhood: The Drama of the Gifted Child and the Search for the True Self

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Today's responsible parents strive to raise children with healthy egos. But for a lot of adults, the word "ego" carries the negative connotation of "narcissism." Traditionally, the "good" child learned self-control, self-denial and placed parental needs and wishes first. If those needs were abusive to the child, there was no choice but to block the hurtful behavior in order to hold onto adults who were loved and needed. Miller recognized the link between certain emotional problems in adulthood and repressed childhood anguish. Her ideas in this pioneering study are a must-read for anyone seeking truth about the roots of suffering in childhood.


Language Notes
Text: English, German (translation)


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The "drama" of the gifted - i.e., sensitive, alert - child consists of his recognition at a very early age of his parents' needs and of his adaptation to these needs. In the process, he learns to repress rather than to acknowledge his own intense feelings because they are unacceptable to his parents. Although it will not always be possible to avoid these "ugly" feelings (anger, indignation, despair, jealousy, fear) in the future, they will split off, and the most vital part of the "true self" (a key phrase in Alice Miller's works) will not be integrated into the personality. This leads to emotional insecurity and loss of self, which are revealed in depression or concealed behind the facade of grandiosity. Alice Miller defines the ideal state of genuine vitality, of free access to the true self and to authentic individual feelings that have their roots in childhood, as "healthy narcissism." Narcissistic disturbances, on the other hand, represent for her solitary confinement of the true self within the prison of the false self. This is regarded less as an illness than as a tragedy. In her psychanalytical work, Dr. Miller found that her patients' ability to experience authentic feelings, especially feelings of sadness, had been for the most part destroyed; it was her task to help her patients try to regain that long-lost capacity for genuine feelings that is the source of natural vitality.


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