Text by Alice Miller

On Sale: Jul 22, 2008
Page Count: 144 pages
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN-13: 9780465016907

$16.99

$22.99 CAD

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The classic work on the enduring effects of childhood trauma

“Rare and compelling in its compassion and its unassuming eloquence.” —New York

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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“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.”
New York
“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