Reviving Ophelia : Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls

by Pipher, Mary (Author)

• ISBN13: 9781594481888
• ISBN10: 1594481881
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-08-01
• Publisher: Riverhead Trade

Summary

The phenomenal #1 New York Timesbestseller. More than 1.5 million copies sold. Now available from Riverhead. This is the groundbreaking work that poses one of the most provocative questions of a generation: Why are American adolescent girls falling prey to depression, eating disorders, suicide attempts, and dangerously low self-esteem? Dr. Pipher posits that it's America's sexist, look-obsessed "girl-poisoning" culture-one in which girls are constantly struggling to find their true selves. In Reviving Ophelia, these girls' uncensored voices are heard from the front lines of adolescence. Personal and painfully honest, this is a compassionate call to arms, offering strategies with which to revive these Ophelias' lost senses of self.

Author Biography

Mary Pipher, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and author of The Shelter of Each Other: Rebuilding our Families and Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of our Elders. Awarded the American Psychological Association's Presidential Citation, Pipher speaks across the country to families, mental health professionals, and educators, and has appeared on Today, 20/20, The Charlie Rose Show, PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer, and National Public Radio's Fresh Air.

Table of Contents

Preface	11	(6)
Saplings in the Storm	17	(12)
Theoretical Issues---For Your Own Good	29	(16)
Developmental Issues---``I'm Not Waving, I'm Drowning''	45	(29)
Families---The Root Systems	74	(27)
Mothers	101	(14)
Fathers	115	(16)
Divorce	131	(15)
Within the Hurricane---Depression	146	(20)
Worshiping the Gods of Thinness	166	(20)
Drugs and Alcohol---If Ophelia Were Alive Today	186	(17)
Sex and Violence	203	(29)
Then and Now	232	(16)
What I've Learned from Listening	248	(12)
Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom	260	(22)
A Fence at the Top of the Hill	282	(13)
Recommended Reading	295	(2)
Index	297	(8)
A Reader's Guide	305

Excerpts

EXCERPT

Reviving Opheliais my attempt to understand my experiences in therapy with adolescent girls. Many girls come into therapy with serious, even life-threatening problems, such as anorexia or the desire to physically hurt or kill themselves. Others have problems less dangerous but still more puzzling, such as school refusal, underachievement, moodiness, or constant discord with their parents. Many are victims of sexual violence.

As I talked to these girls, I became aware of how little I really understood the world of adolescent girls today. It didn't work to use my own adolescent experience from the early 1960s to make generalizations. Girls were living in a whole new world....

Even in our small city with its mostly middle-class population, girls often experienced trauma. How could we help girls heal from that trauma? And what could we do to prevent it?

This last year I have struggled to make sense of this. Why are girls having more trouble now than my friends and I had when we were adolescents? Many of us hated our adolescent years, yet for the most part we weren't suicidal and we didn't develop eating disorders, cut ourselves, or run away from home....

But girls today are much more oppressed. They are coming of age in a more dangerous, sexualized, and media-saturated culture. They face incredible pressures to be beautiful and sophisticated, which in junior high means using chemicals and being sexual. As they navigate a more dangerous world, girls are less protected.

As I looked at the culture that girls enter as they come of age, I was struck by what a girl-poisoning culture it was. The more I looked around, the more I listened to today'smusic, watched television and movies and looked at sexist advertising, the more convinced I became that we are on the wrong path with our daughters. America today limits girls' development, truncates their wholeness, and leaves many of them traumatized....

What can we do to help them? We can strengthen girls so that they will be ready. We can encourage emotional toughness and self-protection. We can support and guide them. But most important, we can change our culture. We can work together to build a culture that is less complicated and more nurturing, less violent and sexualized and more growth-producing. Our daughters deserve a society in which all their gifts can be developed and appreciated. I hope this book fosters a debate on how we can build that society for them.