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.