The book is ostensibly a parenting-oriented psychology text, but I think it was likely far more useful to me as a girl on the cusp of the age range discussed in the book than it would have been in the hands of my mother. I borrowed this book off my mother's bookshelf twelve or thirteen years ago when I was just entering adolescence myself. Told in the brave, fearless, and honest voices of the girls themselves who are emerging from the chaos of adolescence, Reviving Ophelia is a call to arms, offering important tactics, empathy, and strength, and urging a change where young hearts can flourish again, and rediscover and reengage their sense of self. They were losing their resiliency and optimism in a “girl-poisoning” culture that propagated values at odds with those necessary to survive. Crashing and burning in a “developmental Bermuda Triangle,” they were coming of age in a media-saturated culture preoccupied with unrealistic ideals of beauty and images of dehumanized sex, a culture rife with addictions and sexually transmitted diseases. Why were so many of them turning to therapy in the first place? Why had these lovely and promising human beings fallen prey to depression, eating disorders, suicide attempts, and crushingly low self-esteem? The answer hit a nerve with Pipher, with parents, and with the girls themselves. The groundbreaking work that poses one of the most provocative questions of a generation: what is happening to the selves of adolescent girls?Īs a therapist, Mary Pipher was becoming frustrated with the growing problems among adolescent girls.

Reviving ophelia