![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
Book Review: Drama of the Gifted Child
Coming in at a hundred and thirteen pages, Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller is an incredibly enlightening tome in which our childhood takes the central stage and is on display for conscious review. We see the importance of developing our emotional and psychological needs as children, and how, if left unmet by our parents they can form neurosis that affect us well into our adulthood.
"Ah well that can't apply to me - I had a great childhood, awesome parents, and was carefree growing up."
This book is for you then. Consistently, through the use of various examples and patient histories Miller shows us that what we think about our childhood as adults and the truth about how it impacted our emotional development is vastly dissonant.
Ever had depression or depressive symptoms? What about a constant need to please, or a need to perform at a high level? Grandiosity and depression are two interlinked signs of unmet childhood narcissism. Basically, as children, in order to develop healthy emotions we have to be allowed to express a wide range of emotions.
If we were chastised for throwing tantrums for example, or taught that 'men don't cry' or told to 'shut up' repeatedly for whatever reason, we learned that in order to receive love from our parents we had to shut down our natural emotional responses. If we had to recite poetry, play a musical instrument, excel at sports or academics and consistently felt pressured to do so our 'true self' suffered as we created this 'false self' that was required in order to receive adulation and 'love' from our parents.
Naturally there is a sliding scale of severity, I myself think I received a lot more support from one parent and more chastisement and pressure from another. This in itself created several 'programs' within my personality and Drama definitely gave me the keys to unlock some hidden memories, buried trauma, and repressed emotions.
While not a long book, it definitely contains much depth. While going through it I found it useful to jot down memories that just popped into my mind while reading, and to take notes in a journal about feelings associated with those memories and how they might be impacting my behavior today. As to whether or not my behavior has drastically changed overnight - of course not. Learning about oneself is a gradual process, but with some good psychology under one's belt one can see things in oneself that were previously missed by consciousness.
All in all a great tome of self-understanding, self-learning, and a condensation of much psychological that is either too obtuse for the layman or too specialized for his purposes.
"Ah well that can't apply to me - I had a great childhood, awesome parents, and was carefree growing up."
This book is for you then. Consistently, through the use of various examples and patient histories Miller shows us that what we think about our childhood as adults and the truth about how it impacted our emotional development is vastly dissonant.
Ever had depression or depressive symptoms? What about a constant need to please, or a need to perform at a high level? Grandiosity and depression are two interlinked signs of unmet childhood narcissism. Basically, as children, in order to develop healthy emotions we have to be allowed to express a wide range of emotions.
If we were chastised for throwing tantrums for example, or taught that 'men don't cry' or told to 'shut up' repeatedly for whatever reason, we learned that in order to receive love from our parents we had to shut down our natural emotional responses. If we had to recite poetry, play a musical instrument, excel at sports or academics and consistently felt pressured to do so our 'true self' suffered as we created this 'false self' that was required in order to receive adulation and 'love' from our parents.
Naturally there is a sliding scale of severity, I myself think I received a lot more support from one parent and more chastisement and pressure from another. This in itself created several 'programs' within my personality and Drama definitely gave me the keys to unlock some hidden memories, buried trauma, and repressed emotions.
While not a long book, it definitely contains much depth. While going through it I found it useful to jot down memories that just popped into my mind while reading, and to take notes in a journal about feelings associated with those memories and how they might be impacting my behavior today. As to whether or not my behavior has drastically changed overnight - of course not. Learning about oneself is a gradual process, but with some good psychology under one's belt one can see things in oneself that were previously missed by consciousness.
All in all a great tome of self-understanding, self-learning, and a condensation of much psychological that is either too obtuse for the layman or too specialized for his purposes.
