The Drama of the Gifted Child (The Search for the True Self)

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ing, general attitudes, these people—the pride of their parents—should have had a strong and stable sense of self-assurance. But exactly the opposite is the case. In everything they undertake they do well and often excellently; they are admired and envied; they are successful whenever they care to be—but all to no avail. Behind all this lurks depression, the feeling of emptiness and self-alienation, and a sense that their life has no meaning. These dark feelings will come to the fore as soon as the drug of grandiosity fails, as soon as they are not "on top," not definitely the "superstar," or whenever they suddenly get the feeling they failed to live up to some ideal image and measure they feel they must adhere to. Then they are plagued by anxiety or deep feelings of guilt and shame. What are the reasons for such narcissistic disturbances in these gifted people? In the very first interview they will let the listener know that they have had understanding parents, or at least one such, and if they ever lacked understanding, they felt that the fault lay with them and with their inability to express themselves appropriately. They recount their earliest memories without any sympathy for the child they once were, and this is the more striking since these patients not only have a pronounced introspective ability, but are also able to empathize well with other people. Their relationship to their own childhood's emotional world, however, is characterized by lack of respect, compulsion to control, manipulation, and a demand for achievement. Very often they show disdain and irony, even derision and cynicism. In general, there is a complete absence of real emotional understanding or serious appreciation of their own childhood vicissitudes, and no conception of their true needs—beyond the need for achievement. The internalization of the original drama has been so complete that the illusion of a good childhood can be maintained. 6
In order to lay the groundwork for a description of these patients' psychic climate, I first will formulate some basic assumptions, which will provide us with a starting point and are close to the work of D. W. Winnicott, Margaret Mahler, and Heinz Kohut. • The child has a primary need to be regarded and respected as the person he really is at any given time, and as the center—the central actor—in his own activity. In contradistinction to drive wishes, we are speaking here of a need that is narcissistic, but nevertheless legitimate, and whose fulfillment is essential for the development of a healthy self-esteem. • When we speak here of "the person he really is at any given time," we mean emotions, sensations, and their expression from the first day onward. Mahler (1968) writes: "The infant's inner sensations form the core of the self. They appear to remain the central, the crystallization point of the 'feeling of self around which a 'sense of identity' will become established." (p. 11) • In an atmosphere of respect and tolerance for his feelings, the child, in the phase of separation, will be able to give up symbiosis with the mother and accomplish the steps toward individuation and autonomy. • If they are to furnish these prerequisites for a healthy narcissism, the parents themselves ought to have grown up in such an atmosphere. • Parents who did not experience this climate as children are themselves narcissistically deprived; throughout their lives they are looking for what their own parents could not give them at the correct time—the presence of a person who is completely aware of them and takes them seriously, who admires and follows them. • This search, of course, can never succeed fully since it relates to a situation that belongs irrevocably to the past, namely to the time when the self was first being formed. • Nevertheless, a person with this unsatisfied and unconscious (because repressed) need is compelled to attempt its gratification through substitute means. 7
Page 3: The Drama of the Gifted Child
Page 6 and 7: A previous version of chapter 1 app
Page 9 and 10: Vantage Point 1990 Almost ten years
Page 11 and 12: Although, understandably enough, I
Page 13 and 14: Preface We live in a culture that e
Page 15 and 16: of child abuse. Had just one person
Page 17: ecognizing the absurdity of what th
Page 20 and 21: ification. On top of all this, the
Page 22 and 23: them), if one cannot love oneself a
Page 25: The Drama of the Gifted Child
Page 28 and 29: yet, for many people the truth is s
Page 32 and 33: • The most appropriate objects fo
Page 34 and 35: that were free of conflict. Usually
Page 36 and 37: would be a denial of the empirical
Page 38 and 39: terest. The parents have found in t
Page 40 and 41: that he killed a child thirty years
Page 42 and 43: there is most acting out. The patie
Page 44 and 45: had not been able to give her child
Page 46 and 47: The Psychoanalyst's Situation It is
Page 48 and 49: e found beyond the deep ambivalence
Page 50 and 51: may be his secret delusion, a secre
Page 52 and 53: tention as our patients usually do,
Page 54 and 55: Chapter 2 Depression and Grandiosit
Page 56 and 57: iotic phase) but also after the gra
Page 58 and 59: conditions), and the child could de
Page 60 and 61: If the child's demands become too g
Page 62 and 63: ceptional capacity for suffering. P
Page 64 and 65: neighborhood. They therefore made s
Page 66 and 67: is not allowed to be what he really
Page 68 and 69: 3. Continuous performance of outsta
Page 70 and 71: an absolutely essential adaptation
Page 72 and 73: eader's letter in which the tragic
Page 74 and 75: neither the grandiose nor the depre
Page 76 and 77: can be experienced, insight and ass
Page 78 and 79: (holding) empathic environment. Win
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to formulate connections that the p
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strate to the patient that "his hop
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that resist this adaptation. In old
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Points of Contact with Some Theorie
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Chapter 3 The Vicious Circle of Con
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finished his ice cream, he gave the
Page 92 and 93:
een caught at night outside the loc
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children are aware of this situatio
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about his own childhood, which he d
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ment of their children. What are we
Page 100 and 101:
If we want to avoid the unconscious
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ference feelings and his own childi
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• The hope that with this birth t
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self—to show himself to the world
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PERPETUATION OF CONTEMPT IN PERVERS
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horrified eyes, and this clearly em
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pulses, for he does not allow the c
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dramas, nor pangs of conscience whe
Page 116 and 117:
"the others," classify, group, and
Page 118 and 119:
sexual satisfactions, whereas the c
Page 120 and 121:
puberty also had to live out his fa
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the 21st of January to the 5th of J
Page 124 and 125:
through experience, not merely corr
Page 126 and 127:
ecause of their very nature, inacce
Page 128 and 129:
course of analysis it can then be s
Page 130 and 131:
flicts had absolutely no effect, th
Page 132 and 133:
not so clever and quick (for instan
Page 134 and 135:
that their teacher once had and was
Page 136 and 137:
the history of his childhood and th
Page 139 and 140:
Works Cited Abraham, K. 1960 (orig.
Page 141 and 142:
Index abandonment, 10-14, 79 Abraha
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The Drama of the Gifted Child (The Search for the True Self)

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