The “drama” of the gifted—i.e., sensitive, alert—child consists of his recognition at a very early age of his parents’ needs and of his adaptation to those needs. In the process, he learns to repress rather than to acknowledge his own intense feelings because they are unacceptable to his parents. This leads to emotional insecurity and loss of self, which are revealed in depression or concealed behind a facade of grandiosity. Alice Miller defines the ideal state of genuine vitality, of free access to the true self and to authentic individual feelings that have their roots in childhood, as “healthy narcissism.”