Alice Miller

The ones who don't look or sound like they have an ego are the ones to watch out for.

There is such a thing as a self-effacing megalomaniac. A person like GP needs to think he's thought of it, seen it, heard it for the first time and is telling you about it because he really thinks it will do you some good.

Women are less afflicted with this condition than men, though women are gaining. It's not narcissism, it's grandiosity as described by Alice Miller in "The Drama of the Gifted Child."

When I first read Miller's book, she rang such a bell. "Without therapy, it is impossible for the grandiose person to cut the tragic link between admiration and love." I saw she was talking about me and that I still had a lot of work to do, that despite all the work I'd done I was still operating too often in the realm of grandiosity, fending off deep pain over the loss of self that resulted from my denial.

Grandiosity is hard to describe but easy to see in others. I see it all the time--the great need to be admired, to achieve, to surpass one's achievements, and to substitute these achievements, for which one believes he is admired, for real love. After reading Alice Miller's book, when I see grandiosity in myself and others I know I'm really looking at a child.

When the ice breaks up along the shores of Flathead Lake in Montana it looks like a hero with a thousand faces, at least to me. This is the way I see things, though I can see how you or I might see things differently.