In 1979, she stopped practicing as a psychoanalyst after having studied and practiced psychoanalysis for 20 years and became critical of both Freud and Carl Jung. Many parents do not expect their children to fulfill their own dreams and expectations at the expense of becoming who they truly are. Segal sees Miller as "one of the inaugurators of the trauma narrative" - the victim culture that not only gave us Dave Pelzer and a hundred other wannabe-bestselling memoirs of horrible childhoods, but also led to the wilder shores of regression therapy, rebirthing and recovered memory syndrome.

The consequence of this circumstance is the inability for these people to consciously experience certain feelings of their own. The "gifted child" she refers to is the child whose natural gifts were forced underground at an early age because they threatened the parent. In becoming her parents’ ideal child, she locks away her true feelings in a kind of “glass cellar,” the key to which is thrown away.this is not the psychopop of twelve-step, i-got-in-touch-with-my-anger-today, neurosis-no-more books.

She was never merely a pop psychologist, even if she has a considerable talent for presenting psychoanalytic ideas in very clear, even stark terms. In actual fact, when you are dedicated to sticking out sometimes very painful therapy, you actually find that these labels are wrong. The automatic natural contact with their emotions and needs will build the individual strength and self-esteem of the child. You just have to learn how to confront it head on instead of avoiding it like you’ve been trained to do.The Drama of The Gifted Child tackles a challenging and emotional subject with unparalleled clarity, grace and aplomb. Where there is no parental respect for a child's feelings, he will seek refuge from his pain in ideologies.