Mary Pipher
Author of Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls
About the Author
Mary Pipher is a therapist and clinical psychologist specializing in women, trauma, and the effects of culture on mental health. She has been called the "cultural therapist" for her generation. In addition to Reviving Ophelia, she is the author of several bestselling books, including Women Rowing show more North, Another Country, and The Shelter of Each Other. She lives in Lincoln, Nebraska. Sara Pipher Gilliam is a writer, editor, and global advocate for refugee families, as well as a former Fulbright Scholar and middle school English teacher. She is editor in chief of Exchange, an international magazine for early childhood professionals and educators. She lives with her family in Hamilton, Ontario. show less
Works by Mary Pipher
Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing As We Age (2019) 447 copies, 17 reviews
The Middle of Everywhere: Helping Refugees Enter the American Community (2002) 334 copies, 2 reviews
Eating Disorders: What Every Woman Needs to Know About Food, Dieting and Self-concept (Positive health) (1997) 2 copies
Simplify [sound recording] 1 copy
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Pipher, Mary
- Legal name
- Pipher, Mary Elizabeth
- Birthdate
- 1947-10-21
- Gender
- female
- Education
- University of California, Berkeley (BA | 1969 - Cultural Anthropology)
University of Nebraska (PhD | 1977 - Clinical Psychology) - Occupations
- psychologist
- Organizations
- American Psychological Association
- Short biography
- Mary Pipher, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and author of The Shelter of Each Other: Rebuilding our Families and Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of our Elders. Awarded the American Psychological Association's Presidential Citation, Pipher speaks across the country to families, mental health professionals, and educators, and has appeared on Today, 20/20, The Charlie Rose Show, PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer, and National Public Radio's Fresh Air.
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Springfield, Missouri, USA
- Places of residence
- Lincoln, Nebraska, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Reviews
I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did.
What environmentalist has not at least sometimes felt the way that Mary Pipher did when she set out to write this book? It can be devastating: every day you set out to fight something, and most of the time you lose; when you win, the wins are often temporary and lost again in the future. Climate change, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, all continue to worsen, while society as a whole remains willfully unaware, determined to shop its way show more to salvation. Each of those problems has the potential to collapse human society and even end the human habitability of planet earth; combined, they are terrifying, and yet very few people seem to be terrified. For people working, either professionally or on the side, in the environmental field, the combination can be psychologically debilitating.
So what a wonderful idea, to write a book from a therapist's perspective, on how not to become unhinged and to maintain one's ability to work productively.
Except that Mary Pipher is not qualified to write this book. Her environmental activism began in 2010, and she is unable to consider the humanity of her opponents.
I admire her body of work and have read most of her books, including [b:Writing to Change the World|39296|Writing to Change the World|Mary Pipher|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309198239s/39296.jpg|206081], which was phenomenal. I understand and respect that she has a lifetime of activism behind her on many issues. But environmental activism and specifically climate change activism are different in some key ways that she does not discuss or admit to, the key difference being that the loved Other is constantly dying, and this may cause the death of everything. And with all due respect, those of us who have been working on this for more than three years have already gone through the process she describes--more than once. What will she do when all of the work she pours into this comes back again and again as worth nothing or less than nothing? When she fails, not once, but dozens of times--will she keep getting up and finding solace in continuing to work and building a community? Maybe. But I'd find it a lot more convincing if she either had that experience herself, or had talked to those of us who had.
The other issue, the dehumanization of the proponents of the Keystone XL Pipeline, is particularly ironic as she spent a large part of Writing to Change the World arguing how important it is not to do that. As a result, she comes off as less of a climate activist and more of a NIMBY, determined to keep the Keystone Pipeline away from Nebraska but otherwise content to keep her climate activism to reusable shopping bags and CFL lightbulbs.
As someone who has been in the environmental field since highschool (I helped start my highschool's environmental club), who has studied it and worked in it full-time ever since, it is impossible to overstate how enormously frustrating this is. Every landscape is special to the people who live there. Every one has some feature or service that makes it unique and important and worthy of conservation. No project is perfect or without impact. There is no such thing as a "perfect" location for any project; just ones that are good enough, and ones that aren't.
Having been on the receiving end of the kinds of character assassinations that she engages in (in my case for wind energy projects), I can state categorically that it has no positive outcome whatsoever to speak or write of people that way. Whoever produced the Keystone XL Environmental Impact Statement, and without regard to the quality of their work or the accuracy of their conclusions, they are almost certainly good people trying to do what they believe is the right thing. To characterize them as corrupt evil-doers trying to buy off Nebraska politicians goes far beyond "unhelpful."
There is some good material here to those new to climate activism--say, post the Copenhagen debacle--in terms of how to cope and keep working. For anyone who has been through more than a few rounds on this one, this is not the book for you. I wish Pipher had sat on this for a few years and written it with the benefit of more hindsight and perspective, after having had some conversations with her enemies, and after having talked to climate activists who have had to cope with these emotions over decades. How great it would have been to hear Bill McKibben's thoughts on this, or Hansen's. I very much suspect that by 2020, Pipher will feel the same way. show less
What environmentalist has not at least sometimes felt the way that Mary Pipher did when she set out to write this book? It can be devastating: every day you set out to fight something, and most of the time you lose; when you win, the wins are often temporary and lost again in the future. Climate change, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, all continue to worsen, while society as a whole remains willfully unaware, determined to shop its way show more to salvation. Each of those problems has the potential to collapse human society and even end the human habitability of planet earth; combined, they are terrifying, and yet very few people seem to be terrified. For people working, either professionally or on the side, in the environmental field, the combination can be psychologically debilitating.
So what a wonderful idea, to write a book from a therapist's perspective, on how not to become unhinged and to maintain one's ability to work productively.
Except that Mary Pipher is not qualified to write this book. Her environmental activism began in 2010, and she is unable to consider the humanity of her opponents.
I admire her body of work and have read most of her books, including [b:Writing to Change the World|39296|Writing to Change the World|Mary Pipher|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309198239s/39296.jpg|206081], which was phenomenal. I understand and respect that she has a lifetime of activism behind her on many issues. But environmental activism and specifically climate change activism are different in some key ways that she does not discuss or admit to, the key difference being that the loved Other is constantly dying, and this may cause the death of everything. And with all due respect, those of us who have been working on this for more than three years have already gone through the process she describes--more than once. What will she do when all of the work she pours into this comes back again and again as worth nothing or less than nothing? When she fails, not once, but dozens of times--will she keep getting up and finding solace in continuing to work and building a community? Maybe. But I'd find it a lot more convincing if she either had that experience herself, or had talked to those of us who had.
The other issue, the dehumanization of the proponents of the Keystone XL Pipeline, is particularly ironic as she spent a large part of Writing to Change the World arguing how important it is not to do that. As a result, she comes off as less of a climate activist and more of a NIMBY, determined to keep the Keystone Pipeline away from Nebraska but otherwise content to keep her climate activism to reusable shopping bags and CFL lightbulbs.
As someone who has been in the environmental field since highschool (I helped start my highschool's environmental club), who has studied it and worked in it full-time ever since, it is impossible to overstate how enormously frustrating this is. Every landscape is special to the people who live there. Every one has some feature or service that makes it unique and important and worthy of conservation. No project is perfect or without impact. There is no such thing as a "perfect" location for any project; just ones that are good enough, and ones that aren't.
Having been on the receiving end of the kinds of character assassinations that she engages in (in my case for wind energy projects), I can state categorically that it has no positive outcome whatsoever to speak or write of people that way. Whoever produced the Keystone XL Environmental Impact Statement, and without regard to the quality of their work or the accuracy of their conclusions, they are almost certainly good people trying to do what they believe is the right thing. To characterize them as corrupt evil-doers trying to buy off Nebraska politicians goes far beyond "unhelpful."
There is some good material here to those new to climate activism--say, post the Copenhagen debacle--in terms of how to cope and keep working. For anyone who has been through more than a few rounds on this one, this is not the book for you. I wish Pipher had sat on this for a few years and written it with the benefit of more hindsight and perspective, after having had some conversations with her enemies, and after having talked to climate activists who have had to cope with these emotions over decades. How great it would have been to hear Bill McKibben's thoughts on this, or Hansen's. I very much suspect that by 2020, Pipher will feel the same way. show less
I read this book as a 12 or 13 year old girl. In retrospect, it pisses the hell out of me* because, while I did have my share of psychological problems, none of them could be attributed to the reasons so solidly laid out in this book: "lookism," divorce, family issues, drugs, alcohol, body image, etc. As a young teen, this book came across to me as a litany of stereotypes. (The worst part, of course, was that I inevitably used it as a checklist, and since I suffered from none of the issues show more listed in Reviving Ophelia, clearly something really was wrong with me ... right? Ugh.) While most of Pipher's conclusions are based on the girls she saw in therapy, she asserts that they are still "typical" girls with the same problems as the ones who don't need to seek therapy... sure. Uh huh. I'm sure this book is perfectly applicable to many many young girls and women, but I'm just saying: don't read it and then think it's universal. There's a world of difference.
* probably did at the time as well, but I didn't realize why until much later show less
* probably did at the time as well, but I didn't realize why until much later show less
Clinical psychologist Mary Pipher reflects on women growing older, in their sixties and seventies, and living their best lives.
I am... well, not the audience for this book in more ways than one. But my book club - which I facilitate as part of my job - chose this to read, I thought it would be a good kickoff to the year. At the beginning, when she talked about transitions, I could relate. I'm entering middle age, however, and in some ways the busiest time of my life with work show more responsibilities, home ownership, and a growing family (in my case, nieces and nephews).
But mainly, I didn't connect with the book because it stays on the surface, talking about the attitude one should have as life changes and new challenges begin even as the busy-ness of life starts slowing down. For example, when writing about how older women can take the long view of life, she writes:
All well and good. She's not wrong, exactly, but she stays with pat sentences like that and doesn't delve into the practical ways in which one should go about taking the long view. She stays on the surface about all the topics she addresses, gives us case studies from her own lives and others' experiences, instead of telling you how to do it. And maybe, as a psychologist, that's her strength. For me as a (task-oriented) reader, though, I prefer the type of self-help book that will give me practical steps (how) and studies (why) that will show me what to do.
See, the thing is, I've been privileged to live close to family two and three generations older than me. I saw firsthand the way an adult over 60, in their retirement age but still with vitality, could experience the world as my great-grandmother continued knitting into her 90s and enjoyed seeing her grandkids for visits, and my grandparents were active gardeners and brought me along to iris society meetings and taught me about our family history while we drove the back roads. I look forward to aspects of that time in my life, even though I also like the stage I'm in now. I don't really need a feel-good book to tell me what I already know. So, it was an okay read for me. The other ladies in my book club are of the age that she describes in the book, however, and I'll be interested in hearing their perspectives. show less
I am... well, not the audience for this book in more ways than one. But my book club - which I facilitate as part of my job - chose this to read, I thought it would be a good kickoff to the year. At the beginning, when she talked about transitions, I could relate. I'm entering middle age, however, and in some ways the busiest time of my life with work show more responsibilities, home ownership, and a growing family (in my case, nieces and nephews).
But mainly, I didn't connect with the book because it stays on the surface, talking about the attitude one should have as life changes and new challenges begin even as the busy-ness of life starts slowing down. For example, when writing about how older women can take the long view of life, she writes:
We don't see the world as it is, but rather as we are. If we are angry and bitter, we find proof of hostility wherever we look. If we are trusting, we look for evidence of kindness. Growth requires us to constantly expand our points of view....If we are curious, we don't just look for evidence that confirms our narrowest opinions, but rather we try to understand more about everyone and everything. We yearn to see the world through the broadest of all lenses. By taking the longest possible view, we can experience gratitude, wisdom, and a sense for the moral continuity of our lives. This strengthens our identities and brings us peace and connection" (238-239).
All well and good. She's not wrong, exactly, but she stays with pat sentences like that and doesn't delve into the practical ways in which one should go about taking the long view. She stays on the surface about all the topics she addresses, gives us case studies from her own lives and others' experiences, instead of telling you how to do it. And maybe, as a psychologist, that's her strength. For me as a (task-oriented) reader, though, I prefer the type of self-help book that will give me practical steps (how) and studies (why) that will show me what to do.
See, the thing is, I've been privileged to live close to family two and three generations older than me. I saw firsthand the way an adult over 60, in their retirement age but still with vitality, could experience the world as my great-grandmother continued knitting into her 90s and enjoyed seeing her grandkids for visits, and my grandparents were active gardeners and brought me along to iris society meetings and taught me about our family history while we drove the back roads. I look forward to aspects of that time in my life, even though I also like the stage I'm in now. I don't really need a feel-good book to tell me what I already know. So, it was an okay read for me. The other ladies in my book club are of the age that she describes in the book, however, and I'll be interested in hearing their perspectives. show less
In this thoughtful and inspiring memoir, the author of the New York Times bestsellers Reviving Ophelia, The Shelter of Each Other, and Another Country explores her personal search for understanding, tranquility, and respect through her work as a psychologist and seeker.
“There are three kinds of secrets,” Mary Pipher says in Seeking Peace: Chronicles of the Worst Buddhist in the World. “Those we keep from everyone, those we keep from certain people, and those we keep from ourselves. show more Writing this book forced me to deal with all three.” After decades of exploring the lives of others through her writing and therapy, Mary Pipher turns her attention to herself—culling insights from her own life to highlight the importance of the journey, not just the destination.
Like most lives, Pipher’s is filled with glory and tragedy, chaos and clarity, love and abandonment. She spent her childhood in small Nebraska towns, the daughter of a doctor mother and a restless jack-of-all-trades father. Often both of her parents were away and Pipher and her siblings lived as what she calls “feral children.” Later, as an adult and a therapist, Pipher was able to do what she most enjoyed: learn about the world and help others. After the surprising success of Reviving Ophelia, she was overwhelmed by the attention and demands on her time. In 2002, after a personal crisis, Pipher realized that success and fame were harming her, and she began working to find a quieter, more meditative life that would carry her toward self-acceptance and joy.
In Seeking Peace, Mary Pipher tells her own remarkable story, and in the process reveals truths about our search for happiness and love. While her story is unique, “the basic map and milestones of my story are universal,” she writes. “We strive to make sense of our selves and our environments.” In Seeking Peace, Pipher reflects on her life in a way that allows readers to reimagine theirs. show less
“There are three kinds of secrets,” Mary Pipher says in Seeking Peace: Chronicles of the Worst Buddhist in the World. “Those we keep from everyone, those we keep from certain people, and those we keep from ourselves. show more Writing this book forced me to deal with all three.” After decades of exploring the lives of others through her writing and therapy, Mary Pipher turns her attention to herself—culling insights from her own life to highlight the importance of the journey, not just the destination.
Like most lives, Pipher’s is filled with glory and tragedy, chaos and clarity, love and abandonment. She spent her childhood in small Nebraska towns, the daughter of a doctor mother and a restless jack-of-all-trades father. Often both of her parents were away and Pipher and her siblings lived as what she calls “feral children.” Later, as an adult and a therapist, Pipher was able to do what she most enjoyed: learn about the world and help others. After the surprising success of Reviving Ophelia, she was overwhelmed by the attention and demands on her time. In 2002, after a personal crisis, Pipher realized that success and fame were harming her, and she began working to find a quieter, more meditative life that would carry her toward self-acceptance and joy.
In Seeking Peace, Mary Pipher tells her own remarkable story, and in the process reveals truths about our search for happiness and love. While her story is unique, “the basic map and milestones of my story are universal,” she writes. “We strive to make sense of our selves and our environments.” In Seeking Peace, Pipher reflects on her life in a way that allows readers to reimagine theirs. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 15
- Also by
- 1
- Members
- 6,354
- Popularity
- #3,870
- Rating
- 3.7
- Reviews
- 67
- ISBNs
- 100
- Languages
- 6
- Favorited
- 4