The Normal One: Life with a Difficult or Damaged Sibling

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Simon and Schuster, 17.09.2002 - 224 Seiten
In the first book of its kind, renowned psychotherapist Jeanne Safer examines the hidden trauma of growing up with an emotionally troubled or physically disabled sibling, and helps adult "normal" siblings resolve their childhood pain.

For too long the therapeutic community has focused on the parent-child relationship as the primary relationship in a child's life. In The Normal One, Dr. Safer shows that sisters and brothers are just as important as parents, and she illuminates for the first time the experience of being "the normal one."

Drawing on more than sixty interviews with normal, or intact, siblings, Safer explores the daunting challenges they face, and probes the complex feelings that can strain families and damage lives. A “normal” sibling herself, Safer chronicles her own life-shaping experiences with her troubled brother. She examines the double-edged reality of normal ones: how they both compensate for their siblings’ abnormality and feel guilty for their own health and success. With both wisdom and empathy, she delineates the “Caliban Syndrome,” a set of personality traits characteristic of higher-functioning siblings: premature maturity, compulsion to achieve, survivor guilt, and fear of contagion.
Essential reading for normal ones and those who love them, this landmark work offers readers insight, compassion, and tools to help resolve childhood pain. It is a profound and eye-opening examination of a subject that has too long been shrouded in darkness.

Im Buch

Ausgewählte Seiten

Inhalt

A Life of Ones Own
137
My Brothers Keeper
139
The Caliban Syndrome
159
Acknowledgment
179
bibliography
197
index
201
Urheberrecht

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Beliebte Passagen

Seite 46 - Be not afeard ; the isle is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears ; and sometime voices, That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep, Will make me sleep again : and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open, and show riches Ready to drop upon me ; that, when I wak'd, I cried to dream again.
Seite 17 - When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
Seite 45 - A devil, a born devil, on whose nature Nurture can never stick ; on whom my pains, Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost ; And as, with age, his body uglier grows, So his mind cankers.
Seite 46 - Abhorred slave, Which any print of goodness wilt not take, Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee, Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour One thing or other: when thou didst not, savage, Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes With words that made them known.
Seite 47 - He is as disproportion'd in his manners, As in his shape.— Go, sirrah, to my cell ; Take with you your companions : as you look To have my pardon, trim it handsomely. Cal. Ay, that I will ; and I'll be wise hereafter, And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass Was I, to take this drunkard for a god, And worship this dull fool ! Pro.
Seite x - Then all at once my sister touches my shoulder. I turn around and look into her eyes . . . Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be!
Seite 45 - And show'd thee all the qualities o' the isle, The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place, and fertile ; Cursed be I that did so ! — All the charms Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you ! For I am all the subjects that you have, Which first was mine own king ; and here you sty me In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me The rest of the island.
Seite 45 - You taught me language; and my profit on't Is, I know how to curse : The red plague rid you, For learning me your language ! Pro.
Seite x - ... followed, from then on, in my father's footsteps, attempting to find in motion what was lost in space— I traveled around a great deal. The cities swept about me like dead leaves, leaves that were brightly colored but torn away from the branches. I would have stopped, but I was pursued by something. It always came upon me unawares, taking me altogether by surprise. Perhaps it was a familiar bit of music. Perhaps it was only a piece of transparent glass— Perhaps I am walking along a street...
Seite 50 - You do look, my son, in a moved sort, As if you were dismayed : be cheerful, sir : Our revels now are ended : these our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air...

Autoren-Profil (2002)

Jeanne Safer, PhD, is an author and American psychotherapist. She has written articles for The Wall Street Journal, Utne Reader, Self, New Woman, and other publications. Safer lives in Manhattan with her husband, Richard Brookhiser, a journalist and historian. They also have a home in Ulster County in the Catskills.

Bibliografische Informationen