Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls by Mary Pipher

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Presentation by Briana Blech
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The Story of Ophelia

• The story of Ophelia, from Shakespeares Hamlet,
  shows the destructive forces that affect young
  women. As a girl Ophelia is happy and free, but
  with adolescence, she loses herself. When she
  falls in love with Hamlet, she lives only for his
  approval. She goes mad and eventually drowns
  herself in a stream.
• Just as Ophelia, girls today are losing
  themselves during adolescence

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Splitting into a True and False Self

• Adolescent girls experience pressure from our
  culture to split into true and false selves to
  fit into the female image our culture stresses
• Reasons
• Physical development
• Lookism
• Parents vs. Peers

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Reacting to Cultural Pressures

• There are four general ways that girls react to
  cultural pressures to abandon the self
• 1) Conform
• 2) Withdraw
• 3) Get depressed
• 4) Get angry

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The Many Selves of Adolescent Girls

• Physical selves
• Emotional selves
• Thinking selves
• Academic selves
• Social selves
• Family
• Peers
• Spiritual selves

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Parenting Styles

• High control
• Moderate control
• Low control

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Mothers and Daughters

• Mothers try to provide
• Protection
• Encouragement
• Devotion
• Love
• How daughters feel about
• mothers during adolescence
• Want separation
• Are embarrassed
• Try to be different

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Fathers

• Fathers expected to be more emotionally involved
  than in past
• Confused about role
• Causes awkward relationship with daughter
• Fathers need to learn to
• Be more open
• Model respect for women
• teach daughters to be smart, bold, and independent

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Divorce

• Adolescents need divorced parents to
• Talk with them
• Supervise them
• Help them stay organized
• Be supportive
• When parents dont have time or energy to do
  these
• Adolescents feel a sense of loss
• Deal with the pain by becoming depressed,
  attempting suicide, or using drugs and alcohol

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Depression

• When adolescent girls
• have tried too hard to be
• socially acceptable
• realize its not fulfilling
• blame themselves
• Depression can be expressed in different ways
• Sluggishness and apathy
• Anger and hate
• Starvation or self-mutilation
• Swallowing pills or drinking heavily
• Promiscuity

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Eating Disorders

• Bulimia
• Most common in young women
• Way to control weight, but becomes an addiction
• Causes depression, dental problems, esophageal
  tears, and gastrointestinal problems
• Anorexia
• Difficult disorder to treat
• Common in bright, high achieving girls
• Perfectionists who diet to the extreme
• Causes depression, irritability, apathy,
  preoccupation with food, even death

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Drugs and Alcohol

• More teenagers are using drugs and alcohol
• Reasons
• Biological predisposition
• Psychological problems
• Social pressure
• Motivations for chemical use by teens
• Expanded awareness
• Thrill seeking and new experiences
• The drug effect - to get high

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Sex and Violence

• Girls face two sexual issues these days
• Understanding their own sexuality
• Facing dangers of being sexually assaulted
• Sexual confusion due to
• mixed messages from family, friends, and media
• not being emotionally or intellectually ready to
  handle the responsibilities that arise with
  having sex
• Adolescent girls are at risk for sexual violence
• Rape
• Abuse

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Helping Clients

• Author tries to teach
• clients
• They can be individuals without separation
• To discover positive ways to be independent
• The effects of mass culture on the family

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Conclusion

• We need to change society if we are to produce
  healthy young women