Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls

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 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 show more 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

While this book had a whole bunch of interesting anecdotes, there were nothing more than anecdotes. The fact that a bunch of her patients manifested particular characteristics doesn't lead to the ability to generalize about adolescent trends in general, as Pipher does here. On the contrary, it's just as reasonable to believe that her patients, many of whom presumably came to her through referrals from other patients, were a self-selecting group, each of whom referred people to Pipher because she had proven talented in dealing with particular adolescent issues.

If Pipher had written a book about the traits of her individual patients, most of whom were adolescent girls, that would have been one thing, and probably would have been a pretty show more good book. But when you're trying to make broad pronouncements about social trends, as Pipher is, anecdotes about your group of patients won't cut it. At all. show less

I borrowed this book off my mother's bookshelf twelve or thirteen years ago when I was just entering adolescence myself. My mother never got it back. 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.

Young as I was, this was the first explicitly feminist text I had ever been exposed to, and for the first time in my life it was able to give me a framework for understanding and a means of describing and recognizing the tensions and problems I was beginning to be able to detect in the environment around me and in the girls who were my friends and classmates. It didn't show more really matter to me that the girls whose stories were featured in the book were by and large far more troubled than myself or any of the adolescents I knew; I could still relate to the angst, insecurities, and general mien shown in their stories. To a degree, both at the time and still today, I felt that having a broader and more holistic understanding of what made things go wrong for so many girls inoculated me against many of these same problems, and allowed me to adopt more effective coping strategies for the drama that inevitably comes with simply being a young teen, and especially with being a young teenage girl.

The text in Reviving Ophelia is fairly simple, straightforward, and concisely described. For all that it's firmly grounded in feminist theory and psychotherapeutic practice, it's neither overly academic nor bogged down in complex theoretical nuance. It is certainly valuable reference reading for parents of preadolescent girls to prepare them for what their daughters may soon be subject to, but I think it can just as effectively (if not more so) be treated as an invaluable toolkit for young girls themselves who may already be confused by the changes thrown at them by biology and their social group, as a means of clarifying and educating them about the hazards of youth in a superficial society. show less

Reviving Ophelia takes personal stories of girls and connects them to larger cultural issues. While written in the mid-nineties, and a little out of date in places, for the most part Dr. Pipher still delivers sound advice, often sharing tidbits about herself along the way. Pipher is a child of the 1950s, and even though the writing is over thirty years old, her stories still hold up. Who hasn’t been “untrue” to themselves, lying about their level of hunger, downplaying grades, pretending to like a style of music or fashion to impress someone else? Peggy Orenstein addresses eating disorders in Schoolgirls in much the same way as Pipher. At times, the stories of girls with overwhelming desires to be thin were so similar I would show more forget which book, Pipher or Orenstein, I was reading. Reviving Ophelia is different from Schoolgirls in that Pipher is drawing from actual therapy sessions while Orenstein visited two different middle schools and interviewed children in a different atmosphere. show less

Reviving Ophelia by Mary Pipher, PhD is a great book for female teenagers and young adults. This book discusses the challenges girls will face growing up. These challenges include depression, eating disorders, peer pressure, and family dynamics. This book is based off of real experiences girls face with each challenge and how different situations shaped the outcome. This is a great YA Literature book because the book discusses real challenges that adolescent girls face in growing up. This book can teach readers not to give into these societal expectations and to be themselves.

Read this while I was in college because it interested me (it wasn't assigned). Pipher provides answers to the mysterious (ridiculous) behavior of adolescent girls. Having been the most awful adolescent--a curse to a hopeful mother--I was definitely curious. If only my mother could have read this back then! This book explains it all; mostly the affect our society has on developing young girls. It seems I was destined to suffer from depression, low self-esteem, an eating disorder, and a toxic relationship with my mother (not her fault!) Pipher helps adolescents and their baffled, suffering mothers understand their problems, behaviors, and motivations. I recommend this book to this group as well as grown women who are interested in show more women's issues.
This particular copy has been lent to friend's aunt, who read it during a time of crisis with her own teenage daughter. (It helped, she says). She left it in the rain, which explains its appropriately warped body-- show less

Approximately 1/3 of the way into this book, I nearly quit. It was highly repetitive; I felt like a lengthy magazine article could have covered the same material. As I got further into the problem-specific chapters, though, I began thinking more and more about my own experiences. I was 13 when this book was first published. I am very much a product of the culture Pipher was addressing. Her insights on family relationships in particular got me thinking. I found some of her cultural observations less interesting, more melodramatic. Overall, though, Pipher wrote an interesting book dotted with useful bits of advice without sounding like a self-help book or being overly preachy. I particularly appreciated her objective stance on adolescent show more drug and alcohol use--that not all of it is problematic or to be pathologized. show less