Gifted Child Quotes

“Every one' of the psychoanalytic trainees she [Alice Miller] has supervised has the same history:

An insecure parent who did not appear to be insecure, but who depended on the child behaving in a particular way.

And an 'amazing ability' on the part of the child to perceive this and take on the assigned role.

"This role secured 'love' for the child-that is, his parents' narcissistic cathexis. He could sense he was needed and this, he felt, guaranteed him a measure of existential...[as quoted by Alice Miller]”
― Alison Bechdel, Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama

“My local library was whole shelves in the older children's section on vampires and demons — and not a single sensible psychic advice book.”
― Cassandra Eason, Everyday Psychic Defense: White Magic for Dark Moments