The Drama of the Gifted Child; Excerpt 2

All excerpts taken from the audio version of The Drama of the Gifted Child, Alice Miller, which can be found on YouTube

This excerpt begins at approximately 39:54;

I constantly feel that the demands are too great, but I cannot change that, I must always achieve MORE than others.

...

Accommodation to parental needs often (but not always) leads to the as-if personality, to a FALSE self.

This person develops in such a way that he reveals only what is expected of him, and fuses so completely with what he reveals, that one can scarcely guess how much more there is to him, hidden behind this masked view of himself.

I want so much more than they've got planned...

Belle, Beauty and the Beast

He cannot develop and differentiate his true self, because he is unable to live it.

It remains in a state of non-communication, as Winnicott phrases it.

Understandably, these patients complain of a sense of emptiness, futility, homelessness.

This emptiness is REAL.

A process of emptying, impoverishment, and partial killing of his potential actually took place, when all that was alive and spontaneous in him was cut off.