Quotessence
Home / Books / The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self

The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self

Book by Alice Miller · 4 quotes · Childhood, Children, Feelings

Filter quotes by topic

The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self Quotes

“The art of not experiencing feelings. A child can experience her feelings only when there is somebody there who accepts her fully, understands her, and supports her. If that person is missing, if the child must risk losing the mother's love of her substitute in order to feel, then she will repress emotions.”

“Many people suffer all their lives from this oppressive feeling of guilt, the sense of not having lived up to their parents' expectations. This feeling is stronger than any intellectual insight they might have, that it is not a child's task or duty to satisfy his parents needs. No argument can overcome these guilt feelings, for they have their beginnings in life's earliest periods, and from that they derive their intensity and obduracy.”