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Alice Miller
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The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self, Revised Edition Paperback – January 1, 1997

by Alice Miller (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 3,698 ratings
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This “rare and compelling” (New York Magazine) bestseller examines childhood trauma and the enduring effects it has on an individual's management of repressed anger and pain.

Why are many of the most successful people plagued by feelings of emptiness and alienation? This wise and profound book has provided millions of readers with an answer—and has helped them to apply it to their own lives.

Far too many of us had to learn as children to hide our own feelings, needs, and memories skillfully in order to meet our parents' expectations and win their "love." Alice Miller writes, "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." But merely surviving is not enough. The Drama of the Gifted Child helps us to reclaim our life by discovering our own crucial needs and our own truth.


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  1. Print length
    136 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    January 1, 1997
  4. Dimensions
    5.3 x 0.5 x 7.95 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    0465016901
  6. ISBN-13
    978-0465016907
  7. See all details
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  1. For one is free from it only when self-esteem is based on the authenticity of ones own feelings and not on the possession of certain qualities.
    Highlighted by 3,947 Kindle readers
  2. At first it will be mortifying to see that she is not always good, understanding, tolerant, controlled, and, above all, without needs, for these have been the basis of her self-respect.
    Highlighted by 3,581 Kindle readers
  3. The grandiose person is never really free; first, because he is excessively dependent on admiration from others, and second, because his self-respect is dependent on qualities, functions, and achievements that can suddenly fail.
    Highlighted by 3,406 Kindle readers
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From the Publisher

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Rare and compelling in its compassion and its unassuming eloquence...her examples are so vivid and so ordinary they touch the hurt child in us all."―The New York Magazine

"An unpretentious little book with an amazing impact...Many readers find themselves portrayed with an accuracy and empathy that seem uncanny, as if the author had been a silent, unseen witness to their childhood [and] their innermost and secret selves."―Vogue

"Full of wisdom and perception."―The New Republic

"Narcissism has rarely been written about with the clarity and quiet insights of this modest, thought-provoking work."―Washington Post Book World

About the Author

Alice Miller (1923-2010) achieved worldwide recognition for her work on the causes and effects of childhood traumas. She was also the author of many books, including The Truth Will Set You Free, Banished Knowledge, Breaking Down the Wall of Silence, Thou Shalt Not Be Aware, and For Your Own Good.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Basic Books; 3rd edition (January 1, 1997)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 136 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0465016901
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0465016907
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.3 x 0.5 x 7.95 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 3,698 ratings

About the author

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Alice Miller

Alice Miller

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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
3,698 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the book excellent, interesting, and eloquent. They also find the insights enlightening, meaningful, and life-changing. Opinions are mixed on the compassion, with some finding it heartwrenching and unyielding, while others say it's psychologically harmful and emotionless.

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ReadabilityInsightCompassionDated content
149 customers mention "Readability"110 positive39 negative

Customers find the book excellent, interesting, and easy to read. They say it's short and engaging. Readers also mention the author has a profound ability to communicate the way children deal with issues.

"...Very effective and powerful reading." Read more

"...On the contrary, it is brilliant, eloquent, and provides enough examples to make the topic easily understood by everyone...." Read more

"...This book is terrific...." Read more

"...oh, and one more thing: sentences are so damn long and sometimes barely comprehensible...." Read more

132 customers mention "Insight"116 positive16 negative

Customers find the book very enlightening, meaningful, and helpful. They say it helps put things in perspective and is life-changing. Readers also mention the ideas presented are still very helpful.

"...Very effective and powerful reading." Read more

"...On the contrary, it is brilliant, eloquent, and provides enough examples to make the topic easily understood by everyone...." Read more

"...I've had for months and connecting the dots for me, but also inspiring me to journal...." Read more

"Very well written and helpful in deciding to become a therapist but the book itself is so poorly made. I wasn’t rough with it at all and it fell apart" Read more

23 customers mention "Compassion"14 positive9 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the compassion in the book. Some find it heart-wrenching, truthful, and beautiful. They also say it's soothing and exquisitely painful to read. However, others say it's psychologically harmful and emotionless.

"...This slim, impassioned, almost poetic volume has revolutionized my life already, and it has been only 24 hrs since I completed reading it for the..." Read more

"i wrote a note on the cover page which reads: "this is a very sad book. and very necessary to read BEFORE one has children...." Read more

"...It is truly heart and eye opening. It will change the way you feel about yourself, the way you love...." Read more

"...It may only be words on paper but you will find this book to be soothing as you read and find that its words are extremely compassionate...." Read more

9 customers mention "Dated content"0 positive9 negative

Customers find the content dated. They also mention some of the concepts are antiquated.

"...Once in a while, it is evident that some of the concepts are antiquated or the sentences run on...." Read more

"...It's a very small book, it's quite old, and there are numerous versions and copyrights, some updated, some not, so watch out for that...." Read more

"The book seems to be very dated..Originally published 1979...." Read more

"...What a complete waste of time and money. It's also very outdated and examples used are pretty extreme." Read more

Wow! Truth telling at its finest
5 out of 5 stars
Wow! Truth telling at its finest
I read Pete Walker’s CPTSD Book and he refers to and recommends this book repeatedly. I’ve honestly gotten more healing and insight from this book than his, even though his book is great. Alice goes into the really deep patterns from our childhood and relates them to our current patterns of living from relationships to our therapy to our parenting. The parent-child dynamics are written about so thoroughly and clearly in this book. Highly recommend... if you are ready for it!
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Top reviews from the United States

Avid dancer
5.0 out of 5 stars Mind blowing and awesome
Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2024
Verified Purchase
Searched my Bible for decades but found the answer to my questions right here in this little book. So glad I lived long enough to read it. Im telling you every human being needs to read this book before even considering being a parent. Even so, just read it to grow and gain Knowledge of the past and what happened does not change ANYTHING from your past but it will most CERTAINLY affect your here and now and your future and the future of the next generation. Very effective and powerful reading.
8 people found this helpful
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Diplomat
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, eloquent, truthful, and painful.
Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2017
Verified Purchase
I started working with a great psychologist/therapist last year to deal with a few issues that i had diagnosed in myself and also to deal with PTSD. In one of our sessions, much to my surprise, he linked these issues back to my childhood and my parents and especially my mother. Apparently my mother has highly narcissistic tendencies and my father, with his indifference, has played the role of the enabler. As i started to do more research and read more to understand so many complicated issues that are part of the human psyche, i came across this book. Please allow me to very honest and say that to this day i have not finished reading the whole book. This, not because it is a difficult or poorly written book. On the contrary, it is brilliant, eloquent, and provides enough examples to make the topic easily understood by everyone. I have not finished it because sometimes the truth hurts and it hurts deeply when one faces it's ugly part. It is forces you to look inside your own self, to analyze your thoughts and actions, and more than anything to accept the origin of your fears and insecurities. Read it and re-read it over and over again, because by understanding your past you can change the present and the future and even if you may not fully break free of the pain, at least you will not repeat the same mistakes with your children. I can not recommend this book enough, painful as it is to read it and face truths about one's self. You will become a better person in the end.
550 people found this helpful
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Xuan
4.0 out of 5 stars Important book with dense concepts, rewarding for the patient reader.
Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2024
Verified Purchase
I think you will get the most benefit out of this book if you have:
1. Previously experienced depression
2. Have undergone some sort of psychotherapy
3. Have done some work on your self-awareness previously
As the author posits in the book, knowing the concepts intellectually will not make the pain and loneliness go away. It must be felt consciously and mourned for what it is; one must face the truth of the pain for the spell to lift. So in that sense, this book will be most compelling for those who have already gone through the experience of self-healing, or are in the process of it. Those who are still ignorant to the forces at work in their subconscious may very well find this book obtuse and sometimes grandiose in its own way. Although I do think the author overreaches sometimes with her conclusions, the overall passion with which she writes the book makes it a very moving argument for all of us ‘gifted but suffering children’ who make up society and are thus able to make or break it with our own neuroses.
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J. Malnar
5.0 out of 5 stars insightful thou i haven't quite made out the title?!
Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2007
Verified Purchase
i wrote a note on the cover page which reads: "this is a very sad book. and very necessary to read BEFORE one has children. unfortunately too late for me :((".
and this is how i felt (and still feel) after having read it (just finished it at 2 am this morning).
the premise of the book is that what we are not aware of, rules (destroys) our lives.
the trauma of being mistreated, manipulated, ridiculed or just ignored in the first days / years of our lives by adults we depended on for our existence gets stored in our bodies and it conditions us not only to neurosis, but also to taking it out on the first available weaker person -usually our children.
it also claims that thanks to the way we are brought up and "loved" by our (own screwed up and wounded) caretakers conditionally, for what we do and how we behave and not for who we are (for the fact we exist), we tend to deny parts of ourselves that the caretakers wish to expunge. we mould ourselves according to what we think they want, and lose ourselves in the process.
as adults, we keep carrying the feeling of inadeqacy and unworthiness and experience it as depression or grandiosity (in which no achievement really is enough for us to start valuing ourselves so we keep pushing for more, just to keep the depression and worthlessness at bay).
some children, on the other hand, "kill" their own emotions and feelings, in order to keep their caretaker's love.
in all cases children take the "blame and shame" for their "inadequacies" and idealize the parents or caretakers who inflicted the wounds.
at times, reading this book, i would remember the fact that i too remember nothing of my childhood, except that it was "idilic". or was it? repression of memories and feelings can go straight into almost complete amnesia.
i also thought of a few people i know, whose parents are strict and cold, who display very little emotion, but go thru life sucking love out of other people only to discard them when they get it.
i would remember how i sometimes lash out at my son, like his being a child is a crime.. the same way i was loved for my achievements, i sometimes get demanding on him and show discontent when he does not comply.
i thought of my son's difficult birth and 6 days in ER, without me, all alone. and i want to scream :(
this book hit me like a hammer.
i hope i read it on time. everyone should do the same, if not for their own sake, then for sake of their innocent children.
oh, and one more thing: sentences are so damn long and sometimes barely comprehensible. the translation could have been done more in the spirit of english language.
57 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Itzel
5.0 out of 5 stars Excelente
Reviewed in Mexico on August 8, 2023
Verified Purchase
Muy buen libro para entender muchas cosas. El lenguaje es sencillo pero al estar en inglés la traducción sí debe leerse un par de veces el mismo párrafo para entender la idea. Yo lo compré porque ya había leído uno anterior "El cuerpo nunca miente" y me gustó. La autora es directa y pone ejemplos de pacientes. Hay términos que se pueden cuestionar o investigar pero hay que entender o leer más a la autora.
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JOSE BALAGUER ALEDON
5.0 out of 5 stars profundo
Reviewed in Spain on May 4, 2024
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Muy interesante aunque cuesta leerlo, debido a la forma de escribir del autor. En todo caso es un gran libro que no deja al lector indiferente. Recomiendo su lectura pero con paciencia
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Aleksandar Stojanovic
5.0 out of 5 stars Wow
Reviewed in Germany on March 18, 2024
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Hefty food, not easy to digest but very nurturing… recommended to everyone in search of some deeper truth to be unhidden.
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Martha
5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent book in demanding the importance of a loving childhood from birth onward.
Reviewed in Canada on February 18, 2020
Verified Purchase
Alice Miller was a true maverick in what she preached in that people from babies on deserve love, care, dignity and respect. She also deserves credit for her beliefs in revisiting childhood trauma with a trained professional in order to be able to free oneself from it. A must read for those trying to understand the pain of their childhood. Even more important to getting the full picture is to read her son Martin Miller’s book “The True Drama Of The Gifted Child!” Martin tells the truth about his horrendous childhood at the hands of Alice and her husband, his father, yet Martin is able to rise above his own pain, understand his mother’s life trauma and come out on top. Martin is my hero and Alice is too in that she refused to back down from her beliefs of the importance of child’s right!
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Teresa
5.0 out of 5 stars Gem of a book
Reviewed in Australia on November 16, 2021
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This book is a must-read for anyone on a journey. It’s size belies the wealth of insights and wisdom it offers One of my treasured guides that reveal new nuances each time one reads it
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