She seems to depend far too heavily on isolated instances as evidence of the childhood "abuses" that have crippled her patients in their adulthood, while dismissing more pronounced examples of abuse as too extreme for the case she wishes to make.

Maybe I'm dense, because confronting and mourning should be pretty straight forward, but I would have still appreciated some more insight in how to do it. Most people continue to live in their repressed childhood situation, fearing and avoiding dangers that haven’t been real for a long time.I would recommend it for anyone that has issues w their parents that they want some perspective on or anyone concerned about possibly passing on the legacy of their own difficulties to their children, however inadvertently. Today if I read it, I might take exception to the Freudian slant, to her constant complaining, to her utter atheistic outlook - but at the time I read this book, I was in no shape to weigh those kinds of things.

Overcoming her repressed past might help her stop trying to compensate for her mom’s timidity by dominating her husband. What’s common to them is the sense of strength it gives to the adults who can’t control their own fears, so they control fear in another person. Anything less than world-historical greatness (and perhaps even that) is seen as failure, that is, pathetic mediocrity. For women who had no independent income, no vote, no say in governance, and who could lose all custody of their children if they left an abusive husband, a primary way to try to keep their children safe from violence was to try to keep their husbands out of taverns.The Drama of the Gifted Child is one of those rare gems that isn’t afraid to cut deep into the heart of the psyche. Alice Miller εισχωρεί στα μύχια της παιδικής ψυχοσύνθεσης και καταγράφει τον τρόπο που αυτή επηρεάζει τη μετέπειτα πορεία προς την ενηλικίωση.