Parenting

The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self by Alice Miller examines how one loses their self during childhood and how as an adult struggle to discover or accept ones true identity that Miller focuses on children who undergo the process of overcoming an "abusive" childhood. Abuse does not necessarily have to be physical or sexual, but in many of the cases outlined in this book they refer to a child growing up in an environment where the child loses their identity and becomes passive to emotional abuse that their parents may indirectly put them through. This results in a child ignoring his or her own needs, which results in the disappearance of the "real" self.