Book Report on Reviving Ophelia

Book Report on Reviving Ophelia

In this book therapist Mary Pipher writes about her experiences at work with adolescent girls. It is intended to make the reader aware of the perils of being a teenager in today's sexualized and media-saturated culture. She talks about how this new and more hostile environment affects adolescent girls' emotional growth and development, and how hard it is to stay true to yourself while trying to fit in with peers. For the most part this book is Dr. Pipher's attempt to reach out to adolescents, as well as their parents and teachers, and tell them that this "problem without a name" is not a death sentence but rather a journey to adulthood, and tells adults how to help these impressionable young girls through what might be the most trying period of their lives.

Mary Pipher, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Lincoln, Nebraska. Her teen years were spent in the sixties, a time radically different from our own. When she first went into practice she was shocked at the different types of problems that had arisen since she was an adolescent. Many problems that plague today's youth were ones that hadn't existed during Dr. Pipher's youth. She acknowledges our unique struggles and unfortunately has witnessed girls who have lost all sense of self.

The title of her book comes from the story of Ophelia, from Shakespeare's Hamlet, shows the destructive forces that affect young women. Ophelia was happy and free when she was young, but she loses herself in adolescence. When she falls in love with Hamlet she pushes aside her own wants and needs, and wishes only to please him and gain his approval. For the rest of her brief life she struggles to please others, mostly her father a...

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...talked to one girl who didn't have any life threatening problems but was just depressed about her life and had a poor self image and low self esteem. This made me feel better because she wrote about how many young women feel the same thing, and minor depression and poor body image is normal.

I think that this book sends a very important message, it tells the reader about the dangers that adolescent girls face and survive every day. It also gives many different perspectives on issues that teens face because she gives us her own opinion and also those of her patients and their parents. I think that the reason this book is so eye-opening is because it gives you the honest truth, it's not candy coated. She tells stories that really happened, and the reality of the book is one of its best qualities.

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reviving ophelia