Hello and welcome to Being Well, I'm Forest Hanson.

If you're new to the podcast, thanks for joining us today, and if you've listened before,

welcome back.

A topic we've explored frequently on the podcast is the huge impact our early life experiences

can have on us, and particularly the relationship that we have with our primary caregivers when

we're young can mold us in lasting ways.

One pattern that can arise in parent-child relationships occurs when the parent is a

bit more emotionally vulnerable, and the child is particularly emotionally intelligent.

In these cases, an inversion of the typical dynamic can occur, where the child devotes themselves

to meeting the parent's emotional needs rather than the other way around, and this can lead

the child to lose touch with their own wants and needs, with their authentic self, which

then can show up in adulthood as underlying feelings of worthlessness, uncertainty, and

self alienation.

One of my favorite books on this topic is Alice Miller's The Drama of the Gifted Child.

Learning about this material was a total eye-opener for me, and I'm really excited to share

it with you today.

I'm joined as usual by Dr. Rick Hanson, because a clinical psychologist, a best-selling

author, and he's also my dad, so dad, how are you doing today?

Really well-forused, and this material is soulful and haunting, and when I read Miller's book,

I thought, how did she know what my childhood was like?

How did she know so clearly what it was like, and so many people have had a similar experience,

so I'm so delighted that in your usual masterful way, you've prepared a lot of great material,

...