Mary Pipher, PhD

Sara Gilliam

The 25th anniversary edition of the iconic book, revised and updated for 21st-century adolescent girls and their families. In 1994, Reviving Ophelia was published, and it shone a much-needed spotlight on the problems faced by adolescent girls. The book became iconic and helped to reframe the national conversation about what author Mary Pipher called "a girl-poisoning culture" surrounding adolescents. Fast forward to today, and adolescent girls and the parents, teachers, and counselors who care about them find themselves confronting many of the same challenges Pipher wrote about originally as well as new ones specific to today. Girls still struggle with misogyny, sexism, and issues of identity and self-esteem. But they're also more isolated than ever before: They don't talk face-to-face to the people around them, including their peers, as they used to: They're texting or on social media for hours at a time. And while girls today are less likely to be in trouble for their drinking or sexual behavior, they have a greater chance of becoming depressed, anxious, or suicidal. In this revised and updated Reviving Ophelia, Pipher and her daughter, Sara Pipher Gilliam (who was a teenager at the time of the book's original publication), have incorporated these new issues for a 21st-century readership. In addition to examining the impact that social media has on adolescent girls' lives today, Pipher and Gilliam explore the rising and empowering importance of student activism in girls' lives, the wider acceptance of diverse communities among young people, and the growing disparities between urban and rural, rich and poor, and how they can affect young girls' sense of self-worth. With a new foreword and afterword and chapters that explore these topics, this new edition of Reviving Ophelia builds on the relevance of the original as it provides key insights into the challenges and opportunities facing adolescent girls today. The approach Pipher and Gilliam take in the new edition is just what it was in the original: a timely, readable combination of insightful research and real-world examples that illuminate the challenges young women face and the ways to address them. This updated Reviving Ophelia looks at 21st century adolescent girls through fresh eyes, with insights and ideas that will help new generations of readers.

Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls

Reviving Ophelia 25th Anniversary Edition

A New York Times Bestseller There are more older people in America today than ever before. They are our parents and grandparents, our aunts and uncles and in-laws. They are living longer, but in a culture that has come to worship youth--a culture in which families have dispersed, communities have broken down, and older people are isolated. Meanwhile, adults in two-career families are struggling to divide their time among their kids, their jobs, and their aging parents--searching for the right words to talk about loneliness, forgetfulness, or selling the house. Another Country is a field guide to this rough terrain for a generation of baby boomers who are finding themselves unprepared to care for those who have always cared for them. Psychologist and bestselling writer Mary Pipher maps out strategies that help bridge the gaps that separate us from our elders. And with her inimitable combination of respect and realism, she offers us new ways of supporting each other--new ways of sharing our time, our energy, and our love.

Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders

Another Country

“Simple solutions for survival in this family-unfriendly culture…Eye-opening…heart-wrenching and uplifting.”—San Francisco Chronicle Even more resonant today than at its original publication in 1996, The Shelter of Each Other traces the effects of our society’s “anti-family” way of life, where parents are overtaxed, children are undersupervised, and technology is rapidly dictating how we interact. As she did in her number-one bestseller Reviving Ophelia, Mary Pipher illuminates how our families are suffering at the hands of shifting cultural norms, and she snaps our gaze into crisp focus. Drawing on the fascinating stories of families rich and poor, angry and despairing, religious and skeptical, and probing deep into her own family memories and experiences, Pipher clears a path to the strength and energy at the core of family life. Compassionate and heart-wrenching, The Shelter of Each Other is an impassioned call for us to gather our families in our arms and hold on to them for dear life.

The Shelter of Each Other

#1 New York Times Bestseller The groundbreaking work that poses one of the most provocative questions of a generation: what is happening to the selves of adolescent girls? As a therapist, Mary Pipher was becoming frustrated with the growing problems among adolescent girls. 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. 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. They were losing their resiliency and optimism in a “girl-poisoning” culture that propagated values at odds with those necessary to survive. 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.

Reviving Ophelia

"An absorbing chronicle of discovery" (Booklist) from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Reviving Ophelia and The Shelter of Each Other Like most lives, Mary Pipher’s is filled with glory and tragedy, chaos and clarity, love and abandonment. She spent her childhood in small Midwestern towns, the nurturing daughter of a doctor mother and a restless, jack-of-all-trades father. Later, as a wife, mother, and therapist, she was able to do what she most enjoyed: learn about the world and help others. But after the surprising success of Reviving Ophelia, she found herself overwhelmed by the demands on her time and attention. In 2002, Pipher experienced a meltdown. She realized that success and fame were harming her, and she began the long journey to a quieter, more meditative life that would carry her toward self-acceptance and joy. In Seeking Peace, Pipher tells her own remarkable story, and in the process reveals fundamental truths about our individual search for happiness and love. Candid, surprising and moving, Seeking Peace offers a map for our own journey toward a more fulfilling, more joyously lived life.

Chronicles of the Worst Buddhist in the World

Seeking Peace

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Reviving Ophelia, Another Country, and The Shelter of Each Other comes an inspirational book that shows how words can change the world. Words are the most powerful tools at our disposal. With them, writers have saved lives and taken them, brought justice and confounded it, started wars and ended them. Writers can change the way we think and transform our definitions of right and wrong. Writing to Change the World is a beautiful paean to the transformative power of words. Encapsulating Mary Pipher's years as a writer and therapist, it features rousing commentary, personal anecdotes, memorable quotations, and stories of writers who have helped reshape society. It is a book that will shake up readers' beliefs, expand their minds, and possibly even inspire them to make their own mark on the world.

Mary Pipher, PhD

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