Prisoners Of Childhood-reissue (Hardcover)

by Alice Miller (Author) "EXPERIENCE has taught us that we have only one enduring weapon in our struggle against mental illness: the emotional discovery and emotional acceptance of the..." (more)
Key Phrases: grandiose person, narcissistic cathexis, narcissistic disturbance, Hermann Hesse, Child's Heart, Ingmar Bergman (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

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 those 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 a 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.The examples Alice Miller presents make us aware of the child’s unarticulated suffering and of the tragedy of parents who are unavailable to their children—the same parents who, when they were children, were available to fill their parents’ needs. In her psychoanalytical 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. Many people who have read her books have discovered within themselves for the first time in their lives the little child they once were. This may explain the unusually strong and deep reactions Alice Miller’s books have evoked in so many readers from different countries. The Drama of the Gifted Child and the Search for the True Self is the original title of the book, which was published in Germany.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (July 4, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465062873
• ISBN-13: 978-0465062874
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #298,240 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

96 of 98 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What "gifted" means to Alice Miller, October 5, 2002

By	S. Goodheart (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Just so readers won't be misled by one of these reviews, (one wonders if the reviewer even read the book) please understand what Alice Miller means by "gifted" in her own words: "When I used the word 'gifted' in the title, I had in mind neither children who receive high grades in school nor children talented in a special way. I simply meant all of us who have survived an abusive childhood thanks to an ability to adapt even to unspeakable cruelty by becoming numb...Without this 'gift' offered us by nature, we would not have survived." The reviewer who says "we will ever know exactly what makes gifted people gifted" and "that's the fun of it" clearly the foggiest idea about what Alice Miller means when she uses the word "gifted," which makes his or her review ridiculously irrelevant. There's nothing "fun" about being "gifted' in the sense that Alice Miller is writing about! As for this incredible book, no one has written more clearly or insightfully about child abuse than Alice Miller and if anyone knows about what makes children "gifted" (in her special use of the term), it's Alice Miller. People who review books should at least read the book they review, and should at the very least, if they have read it, understand what the writer has written. If you have been abused, whether overtly or by the poisonous pedagogy of our various societies, this book is healing balm to your soul. Read it and may it help you stand up for yourself and be healed.

135 of 150 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A book that makes you cry in your dreams- and then sleep, November 17, 2000

By	Earl Hazell (New York) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This is one of those books that are not for the faint of heart. So many books in the world that people think are incendiary or revolutionary, challenging and rechallenging our conception of free speech, religion, citizenship, science and technology, philosophy, economics and politics or spirituality have an attraction to us because of how they serve as metaphors for the painful realities of our personal lives under the illusions we create for public consumption, and the secrets of our inner selves we wish to uncover. We yearn to break free of something and embrace some inner truth; we just don't know what, and therefore call it some aspect of the outer world. The desires we have to be and have more than what we are, the feelings of not knowing who we truly are and never truly being loved- and the root causes of such feelings- are unveiled in this powerful, disturbing, life shifting and life-affirming book.

Alice Miller was one of the patron saints of John Bradshaw, the man whose work heralded the age of the Inner Child that became part of the pop-psychology lexicon of the 90's. Her perspective and conclusions, scientifically, sociologically and philosophically speaking, are practically undebateable. And without even needing the true case examples from her therapeutic practice to underscore her points (which she uses with striking and original clarity and precision across gender, racial, ethnic, cultural and socioeconomic lines), her elucidation of her central thesis on the ignored emotional life of children- and the cost of having parents unequipped to give them the love they need- will undoubtedly make deep seated memories of your own childhood come to the surface.

Why does society have such automatic and irrational contempt for the egotist? Why do individulas run to prove themselves (or immediately start thinking of themselves defensively) as the antithesis, upon seeing anyone's character asessed in such a context? Why does even the WORD "self" conjure up confused and uncomfortable feelings when used in anything but a mind-numbing spiritual context with people? What do children need beyond basic nutritional and socioeconomic concerns, and what happens to them when they grow older but do not get it? How is it possible to have more material things and personal achievements than anyone, and still have less and less confidence in who you are?

This book can explain things about your adult life and relationships that you'd rather not have so easily and individually explained. And those who look to books like these to figure out what's wrong with their friends, lovers and parents will discover more about themselves than they may think they're ready to process. We all are not just ready but overdue for these kinds of life lessons.

Never has a writer, perhaps before or since, put the words "childhood" and "mourning" together in one thought, such that it can create a complete paradigm shift in how one sees oneself, and sees the opportunities for happiness one's world.

The fault levied on any psychologist on her level- and there are very, very few- is that this kind of thinking all but demands the kind of narcisstic modern solipsism she seems to diagnose as symptomatic of the illness. (She refers to the dynamic not as an illness, however, but a "tragedy"; keeping us again, I believe, in tune with the ancient Greek mythic/philosophical reference inherent in the old title for this book, "The Drama of the Gifted Child".) Such blanket criticism of psychology books in general could only be concluded with one of this quality from a misreading of the text; the kind of misreading that usually comes when she has hit a nerve the likes of which one didn't expect, may be afraid of and couldn't imagine beforehand. Nonetheless, taking our culture's preoccupation with the self into consideration, there is still nothing of lasting value one could do in the world without at least endeavoring to answer the existential questions of soul, love, freedom, loss and pain- and the true self- that this book demands you to do in a new way for practically the rest of your life.

I gave it four stars instead of five because it was too short. I didn't want it to end. And the idea that she could 1) prove her point, 2)deeply affect me by making me dream dreams that I've never dreamed before, 3)access undramatic but painful memories of childhood events that I forgot happened but have been behind more than half of the seemingly unrelated choices I've made in my adult life, and 4) feel a usually suppressed rage and grief give way to a new sense of purpose and a release of joyful energy and optimism- all in a little more than a hundred pages- still makes me queasy. In other words, read this as a five and a half star review! Then buy the book, put down the most recent bash on modern politics and the latest neo-spiritual mind candy on the bestseller's list, and begin a real journey.

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wise & Perceptive Book About Children of Narcissistic Parents., July 27, 2005

By	Jana L. Perskie "ceruleana" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Alice Miller's "Prisoners Of Childhood; The Drama Of The Gifted Child," was originally published in 1981. A later revised and updated edition, "The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self" is now available with a new Foreward by Dr. Miller. I read this book over 20 years ago, and recently reread it. I find that it is just as relevant, wise and perceptive today as it was then. Dr. Miller was a practicing psychoanalyst, who gave up her work with patients to write books, for the layperson, primarily dealing with early childhood abuse. In her Forward, Miller continues to disavow psychoanalysis. Although I am not in agreement with her on this, she continues to be one of my heroes.

Dr. Miller, who writes an elegant and easily understandable prose, discusses here the issue of children raised by a narcissistic parent(s). She explains that this book is not about high I.Q. children, but about those who were able to survive an abusive childhood because they developed an adequate defense system. At a very early age the child intuitively apprehends the parent's needs. Since the parent, especially the mother, is the child's soul source of survival, the child strives to please, fearing disapproval, or abandonment. Thus, the child sublimates his needs for the parent's. Roles reverse and the child frequently takes on the parent's responsibility as emotional caregiver. This impedes the growth of a child's true identity, and a "loss of self" frequently occurs. The child adapts by not "feeling" his own needs, and develops finely tuned antennae, focusing intensely on the needs of the all important other. Ms. Miller writes, "An abused child, (emotionally), does not know it is being abused, and in order to survive and avoid the unbearable pain, the mind is provided with a remarkable mechanism, the 'gift' of 'repression,' which stores these experiences in a place outside of consciousness." Although, later in life, these "prohibited" feelings and needs cannot always be avoided, they remain split off and the most vital part of the true self is not integrated into the personality. The results are often depression, and tremendous insecurity.

Alice Miller makes her readers aware of the unexpressed sufferings of the child and the tragedy of the parent(s) own illness. As she frequently states, "any parent who abuses a child," knowingly or otherwise, "has himself been severely traumatized in his childhood, in some form or another."

Gifted children are often the products of emotional abuse by a narcissistic parent. However, if the child's great need for admiration is not met, for his/her looks, intelligence or achievements, he/she falls into severe depression. Miller says one can only be free from depression "when self-esteem is based on the authenticity of one's own feelings and not on the possession of certain qualities."

Children need a great deal of both emotional and physical support from the adult. According to Miller, this adult support must include the following elements in order for a child to develop to his or her full potential: "Respect for the child; respect for his rights; tolerance for his feelings; willingness to learn from his behavior."

Miller also writes about the "origins of grandiosity as a form of denial and its relationship with depression." Another interesting chapter deals with the "process of parental derision" and how it results in humiliation and possible psychic trauma of the child.

Alice Miller's extraordinary book, along with consistent psychoanalytic psychotherapy, enabled me to understand my past, modify behavior, forgive, and finally, best of all, to heal. I cannot recommend "Prisoners of Childhood: The Drama Of The Gifted Child" highly enough.
JANA