Posted by badhaircut on February 1, 2004, at 16:56:26
In reply to Just started The Drama of the Gifted Child, posted by gardenergirl on January 31, 2004, at 7:43:24
gardenergirl--
It's been a while since I read Miller's books, so I bet I'm confusing things in her later works with 'Drama'. The 'Drama' edition currently sold, however, is a 1997 revision that -- as I understand it -- she changed to fit better with her later, more strident views. She went so far as telling people in the early 1990s not to read 'Drama' because her views had changed so much. So it may depend on which edition you get.
I was permanently deepened by 'Drama' (1981 translation). It helped me become aware or remember both how easy it is to hurt a child's feelings AND how easy it is to empathize and support a child emotionally. For that reason I would recommend excerpts of it to every new parent.
On the whole, however, my main impression of Miller's later work was that she *became* the domineering, narcissistic, critical mother described in her books. She brooks no dissent! Views contrary to hers are severely dismissed, no matter what controlled evidence backs them up. If people say their own lives are better due to ignoring rather than highlighting earlier misfortunes, she just says they're wrong. Her own evidence, of course, is limited to case reports, art criticism, and her own emotional experience.
But her assertions of incontrovertible insight were weakened, for me, by the fact at a couple different points in the last 25 years she's made declarations along the lines of "I thought I was cured before but I was so self-deluded and wrong. NOW I'm cured and see the ONLY way to be whole." How many times can a professional psychotherapy writer publish such statements before she's suspected of a general lack of self-insight?
The disapproving tone she takes toward psychoanalysis I found frankly bewildering, since all of her work is IMO psychoanalytic: she focuses on the repressed Unconscious, on cathartic insight, and on the continuing control of adult emotions by early (VERY early) childhood experience. She also out-Freuds Freud in attributing late-life experiences (like Freud's jaw cancer) to childhood emotions (rather than, say, his 50 years of cigar smoking).
I was taken aback by Miller's 1986 foreword to J. Konrad Stettbacher's "Making Sense of Suffering." It struck me as both a cry for help and a sad example of groveling devotion -- by Miller to Stettbacher (who lacks her talent, charm, and sharp mind).
Just some top-o'-the-head thoughts. I'm glad you're reading Miller. I don't think she should be ignored by clinical psych students. When you're done, I'd really like to know what you think of 'Drama' (and which edition you read).
-bhc
PS: Thanks for bringing up a psych book on PB-Books! :-)
poster:badhaircut
thread:307634
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/books/20030426/msgs/308238.html