I've been meaning to read Alice Miller for ages, specifically her book The Drama of the Gifted Child, so when I stumbled on this book at the library I decided impulsively to grab it and see what I might find.
Miller is a psychologist who specializes in child abuse and the effects it has throughout a person's life. This particular book is geared toward what the subtitle spells out: Overcoming Emotional Blindness and Finding Your True Adult Self. The book describes learned patterns of child abuse that are then perpetrated on one's own children, because of "that's the way I was raised and I turned out fine!" and other similar excuses. In this regard, it would be helpful for someone who might be wondering if they really did, in fact, turn out OK, and if their parents' way of parenting was actually abusive.
At the end of the day, the book is an interesting treatise that more people should read, but I do wish it had had more practical information for people trying to recover from childhood abuse, and how to ensure abuse isn't just mindlessly perpetrated generation after generation. But definitely a good book if you're just trying to grapple with why (some) abuse still occurs as often as it does.
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