Children often receive the message that certain parts of them are acceptable while others are not -a dichotomy that, if internalized, leads ineluctably to a split in one's sense of self. The statement "Good children don't yell," spoken with annoyance, carries an unintended but most effective threat: "Angry children don't get loved." Being "nice" (read: burying one's anger) and working to be acceptable to the parent may become a child's way of survival. Or a child may internalize the idea that "I'm lovable only when I'm doing things well," setting herself up for a life of perfectionism and rigid role identification, cut off from the vulnerable part of herself that needs to know there is room to fail-or even to just be unspectacularly ordinary- and still get the love she needs.