Reviving Ophelia - Mary Bray Pipher [1]
RIVERHEAD is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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PRINTING HISTORY
First Ballantine Books trade paperback edition: March 1995
First Riverhead trade paperback edition: July 2005
eISBN : 978-1-101-07776-4
Pipher, Mary Bray.
Reviving Ophelia : saving the selves of adolescent girls / Mary Pipher.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-07776-4
1. Teenage girls—Psychology—Case studies. 2. Teenage girls—Family relationships—Case studies. 3. Self-esteem in adolescence—Case studies. I. Title.
HQ798.P
305.23—dc20
http://us.penguingroup.com
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my family—Jim, Zeke and Sara and all the Brays, Pages and Piphers.
I appreciate my writers’ groups—Nebraska Wesleyan Writers’ Group and Prairie Trout. I thank these writers for their help with this project: Pam Barger, Claudia Bepko, Carol Bly, Emilie Buchwald, Paul Gruchow, Twyla Hansen, Carolyn Johnsen, Jo-Anne Krestan, Margaret Nemoede, Marjorie Saiser, Leon Satterfield, Carol Spindel and Elizabeth Weber. I thank my writing teachers: Kent Haruf, Bill Kloefkorn and my first teacher, Charles Stubblefield.
The following people helped me with the book: Nancy Bare, Randy Barger, Beatty Brasch, Ellen Brt, Laura Freeman, Sherri Hanigan, Anna Harms, Sally Jones, Karen Kelly, Brooke and Cathy Kindler, Mary Kenning, Dixie Lubin, Jane Masheter, Frank McPherson, Natalie Porter, Carrie Rodgerson, Jan and Amy Stenberg, Susan Whitmore and Jan Zegers. And I thank all my clients, whom I cannot name, for the many lessons they have taught me.
I thank my friend and editor, Jane Isay, and her assistant, Rona Cohen. I thank my literary agent, Susan Lee Cohen.
To the memory of Frank and Avis Bray
Preface
When I wrote Hunger Pains: The American Women’s Tragic Quest for Thinness in the 1980s, I was attempting to understand the epidemic of eating disorders that had hit women in our community. I asked myself, Why is this happening to so many women now? I found many answers in an analysis of the culture and its message to women about weight and beauty.
Reviving Ophelia is my attempt to understand my experiences in therapy with adolescent girls. Many girls come into therapy with serious, even life-threatening problems, such as anorexia or the desire to physically hurt or kill themselves. Others have problems less dangerous but still more puzzling, such as school refusal, underachievement, moodiness or constant discord with their parents. Many are the victims of sexual violence.
As I talked to these girls, I became aware of how little I really understood about the world of adolescent girls today. It didn’t work to use my own adolescent experience from the early 1960s to make generalizations. Girls were living in a whole new world.
As a therapist, I often felt bewildered and frustrated. These feelings led to questions: Why are so many girls in therapy in the 1990s? Why are there more self-mutilators? What is the meaning of lip, nose and eyebrow piercings? How do I help thirteen-year-olds deal with herpes or genital warts? Why are drugs and alcohol so common in the stories of seventh-graders? Why do so many girls hate their parents?
Meanwhile my own daughter was in adolescence. She and her friends were riding a roller coaster. Sometimes they were happy and interested in their world; other times they just seemed wrecked. They were hard on their families and each other. Particularly junior high seemed like a crucible. Many confident, well-adjusted girls were transformed into sad and angry failures.
Many of my friends had daughters in adolescence. When we talked we were confused, angry and unsure how to proceed. Many of us felt tormented by our daughters, who seemed upset with us for the smallest things. We had raised our daughters to be assertive and confident, and they seemed to be insecure