Polly Young-Eisendrath

Polly Young-Eisendrath, Ph.D.,Dr. Polly Young-Eisendrath is a psychologist and Jungian psychoanalyst practicing in Burlington, Vermont where she is also Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Vermont Medical College. She has published ten books and many chapters and articles on psychotherapy, women's development, couples therapy, spirituality, resilience and Carl Jung's psychology.

A recent keynote speaker at the Georgia Psychological Association Annual Conference, the London Society for Analytical Psychology Conference on the Millennium, featured guest on National Public Radio's "Fresh Air," and "The Diane Rehm Show," Dr. Young-Eisendrath is a lively, eloquent and thought-provoking speaker. She lectures widely on topics of resilience, women's growth and development, and couple relationship in the context of Buddhism, feminism, and the practice of psychoanalysis.

Special: When Great Expectations Defeat Ordinary Happiness
She is finishing "Special: When Great Expectations Defeat Ordinary Happiness," to be published by Little, Brown in 2007. Here is an excerpt from "Special."

Chapter One:

I wrote this book because I came to the end of my rope. I have sat hour upon hour in psychotherapy with my heart aching for anxious parents who worry that their teenage and older children lack good sense and empathy for others, and then more hours with well-educated adults in their 20's and 30's who are already discontent with their desirable lives, and still more hours with young mothers bound to impossible ideals for themselves and their children. One day something in me exclaimed, "Enough!" I had read every book out there on the subject of perfectionism and indulging our children, giving too many privileges and not disciplining enough, but I could not find a foothold that allowed me or my clients to climb out of the box that we were trapped in. It felt like we had glue on the bottom of our feet.

The box is our shared cultural attitude: that everyone is special, a winner, with the potential to be great. This attitude makes a powerful demand on parents and children and creates excessive self-focus and relentless desires to be or have the best. Although we have critiqued and studied this attitude, we have not been able to step out of it. Stepping out is too painful if we blame ourselves or others for being stuck here in the first place.

In the 1970's and 1980's parents and teachers began a campaign to cure low self-esteem in our young. Hoping to increase children's creativity and self-confidence, this educational and parenting movement unwittingly promoted unrealistic fantasies of achievement, wealth, power, celebrity. When these expectations are not met in adult life, "special" becomes "defective" in a person's perception of herself. Many good books have already been written on this subject, some based on studies and others on clinical observations. They identify a problem, although they call it by different names. And yet, no one has uncovered the roots of the problem or found the cure. Symptoms of self-focus, restless dissatisfaction, pressures to be exceptional, attacks on the self, unreadiness to take on adult responsibilities, feelings of superiority (or inferiority), and excessive fears of being humiliated are recognized by almost everyone, mental health professionals and ordinary people alike.

I could use labels like "narcissism" and "entitlement," but I believe they are insulting, especially to parents who devote every spare hour to helping their kids in every way they can. Instead of labeling, I wanted to get us unstuck and to stop us from blaming ourselves and others. And so, I decided to write a book myself. I have written many books and given many public and professional lectures on child and adult development. Writing books helps me understand what I don't understand.