Why are many of the most successful people plagued by feelings of emptiness and alienation? This wise and profound book has provided thousands of readers with an answerand 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.

Table of Contents

The Drama of the Gifted Child and How We Became Psychotherapists * The Poor Rich Child * The Lost World of Feelings * In Search of the True Self * The Therapists History * The Golden Brain Depression and Grandiosity: Two Related Forms of Denial * The Vicissitudes of the Childs Needs * The Illusion of Love * Depressive Phases During Therapy * The Inner Prison * A Social Aspect of Depression * The Legend of Narcissus The Vicious Circle of Contempt * Humiliation for the Child, Disrespect for the Weak, and Where It Goes from There * Working with Contempt in Therapy * Depravity as Evil in Hermann Hesses Childhood World * The Mother as Societys Agent During the First Years of Life * The Loneliness of the Contemptuous * Achieving Freedom from Contempt and Respecting Life