I thought the book was very challenging and thought provoking. I would recommend it for helping to search how our childhood effects us.

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There is much discussion of anal/oral fixations and Oedipal compulsions. It was as if the author more or less used the language of her time (the 70's) to justify her thinking. However, there is one point that is very strong: When a mother is not properly and lovingly raised as a unique person when she is a child, she will find it difficult to allow her own children to grow up with their own unique identies. I have seen this in my own childhood.

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The new title, "Drama of The Gifted Child", is not very accurate. The original title, "Prisoners of Childhood" is the better title to describe the book. This book is not about "gifted and talented" children as Americans in the late 20th century thought about them, it is about ALL children and the fact that we are all born extremely sensitive to emotions and the world around us.

The book describes how our personalities are essentially destroyed by our parents not accepting us for who we really are and punishing us (consciously or unconsciously) for showing emotions they disapprove of. This is about how we are rewarded or punished for things we do, and how we are trained to jump through hoops and suppress our true personalities to gain approval.

I found this book to be profoundly helpful in my own journey towards emotional maturity and evolution towards true adulthood (age does not indicate whether you've grown up or not), and I highly recommend it for anyone who has reached the stage of growth where they are ready to look at their parents with honesty and objectivity instead of idolising them and giving their abusive behaviour a free pass.

5 stars.

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