Alice Miller

From Rage to Courage: Answers to Readers' Letters

admin — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Alice Miller alleges that "most people (ninety-five percent of the world population) were beaten as children." You might think these are some pretty hefty charges: so did I. This book, in my opinion, does not seem to have any purpose besides encouraging readers to read Miller's other works, and also for blaming bad parenting as the root of every societal illness.

Perhaps I would have better appreciated From Rage to Courage had I been familiar with Miller's research, or if the book provided any empirical data supporting her claims. Instead, I was inundated by Miller's recommendation that readers acknowledge the childhood abuse they suffered, even if they didn't remember it happening. This book encourages everyone to delve into their psyche to try and find some hints of abuse.

I am skeptical of Miller's proposition that ninety-five percent of the world's adults suffered childhood abuse, but what really struck me as odd in this book is the claim that victims must embrace rage and shun forgiveness to cure themselves. I believe that anger can be a very liberating emotion, and I agree with Miller that victims of abuse should acknowledge the perpetrator's role in hurting them. However, I do not think a lack of forgiveness and a permanent angry state is even remotely healthy. My experience with anger leads me to believe that when a victim holds on to grievances, she is the one punished—not the abuser. Anger leads to bitterness, and both poison a person from the inside out. Forgiveness is not something that excuses the person in the wrong: it is a means for the victim to make peace with their past and go on to live their lives without dwelling on their pain.

According to From Rage to Courage, abuse victims need to dwell on this pain in order to "free" themselves. Without an explanation as to how this is accomplished, however, the book just sounds like an exhortation to permanent resentment, without any means to get to the next step of recovery. Perhaps Miller outlines this in her other works, but as a book considered in its own right, this one doesn't stand up.

Make no mistake: child abuse is horrifying, and probably occurs much more than is reported due to the helpless nature of its victims. I fully support awareness of this issue, as there is no doubt that child abuse affects people negatively all their lives. Alice Miller's collection of her own letters just seems a bit melodramatic to affect any change, and her goal seems more to increase her book sales than to offer solutions.

Written by: Sam Williams, March 20th 2010

Free From Lies: Discovering Your True Needs

admin — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 09:15:00 +0000

By Alice Miller, Andrew Jenkins

WW Norton

In her latest study, Free From Lies, famed psychologist Alice Miller examines the way child abuse shapes the psyche and the effect it can have on humanity. While the human brain has an incredible ability to normalize traumatic events, Miller argues that abuses suffered in childhood can never truly be repressed. It appears as though humanity is suffering from a collective amnesia regarding the wrongs we suffered in infancy. These wrongs, according to Miller, will manifest themselves later in life. We see evidence of this everywhere—in the form of domestic abuse, war, and genocide—all of which are prominent throughout our history. Those who have been able to break away from the cycle of abuse (a minority of about ten percent) are not without their problems, often suffering from serious health conditions later on in life.

Miller argues that humanity has, for the most part, come to define child abuse as "good parenting." The negative implications of this are two-fold: first, the child develops conflicting views regarding their parents, who act simultaneously as care-giver and as tyrant, and secondly, that the general, worldwide acceptance of child abuse will ensure it is passed down from generation to generation. Miller examines horrific dictators like Adolph Hitler, revered icons like Marilyn Monroe, serial killers, and domestic abusers. While the common denominator among her subjects is, of course, child abuse, Miller looks at the way her subjects have been psychoanalyzed. She argues that history tends to analyze and treat severely traumatized and/or psychotic adults by looking at the symptoms of their pain rather than determining the causes of it. Miller stresses the importance of asking the right questions when dealing with these seemingly traumatized adults. This, according to Miller, is the only way to determine the root cause of abuse and determine the appropriate course of therapy.

Free from Lies is a logical, well-documented study that examines the ideologies that society has been reluctant to confront. Miller challenges others in her field head-on, wondering aloud why some child psychologists continue to deny and document the existence of child abuse. Not only is her fearless study convincing and engaging, the book is also extremely readable. Miller's approach to writing is refreshingly no-nonsense; she refrains from padding her observations with diatribes and academic-speak, ensuring her work can be read and enjoyed by a mainstream audience.

A compelling read, Free from Lies belongs on the bookshelves of everyone from the novice to the well-seasoned psychoanalyst. This important study has all the trimmings of a classic in the making and it is bound to invite and create debate and dissection for many years to come. The study is best appreciated through multiple reading as it will reveal new truths and insights each time. If we want to better our communities, it is imperative we understand our own inner-workings. Free from Lies will serve as an excellent aid by promoting open discussion and release from our own forgotten abuses.

Written by: Cheryl Santa Maria, July 11th 2009

Breaking Down the Wall of Silence: The Liberating Experience of Facing Painful Truth

admin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:14:00 +0000

By Alice Miller

Basic Books

In an episode of the television series Homicide: Life On The Street, detective John Munch muses on how to crack the case of a brutal murder. In his typically caustic, world-weary way he quips darkly about motive, “If it’s not one thing, it’s a mother.”

Alice Miller would add “or the father” to that line. And she would cite the collective truth-repressing forces of traditional patriarchal society—family, academia, clergy, politicians and the psychiatric community—all influential agents that encourage a child to dismiss or dance around its trauma story as if it were an electrifying third rail. Forgive and move on is the catchphrase of the day.

Not so fast, says Miller. First, air the bloody wound before forgiveness. Bad parenting must be addressed at the root. Denying and repressing guarantee that more innocent victims will be scapegoated to satisfy long festering rage. Miller contends that trauma from abuse is responsible for all of mankind’s neuroses and psychoses, and could lead to our extinction in this fragile technological world. Society must get better at protecting children against what she calls the “poisonous pedagogy”: humiliation, neglect, hitting, shaming with verbal and emotional abuse, and of course, rape, delicately called molestation by polite society.

Breaking Down the Wall of Silence is Alice Miller’s thirteenth book focusing on childhood trauma. Miller is an articulate and empathetic supporter of abused children and grownups who struggle with the betrayal and trauma that result from abuse. An impassioned evangelist for children’s rights (she is a psychologist, an abuse survivor and author of the highly acclaimed The Drama of the Gifted Child), Miller continues to make her case with great force that if the majority of people and lawmakers remain psychologically illiterate, we might as well resign ourselves to nuclear war in the near future.

As in most of Miller’s books, she uses high profile case studies to illustrate her points. She has previously written of the humiliations and beatings that were standard fare in the childhoods of Hitler and Stalin, and how those angry boys grew up to be murderous dictators who projected onto the world stage their revenge in the form of mass murder and torture. In this book, she delves into the childhood of yet another tyrannical basket case: former Romanian president Nicolae Ceausescu. This havoc-wreaking man, emotionally and physically battered and shamed as a child by his own father, rose to power and blow-torched his rage all over his country. He is dead, executed for his crimes, but the hideous abuse lives on to this day in Romania.

I was particularly intrigued by Alice Miller’s study of Ceausescu because a couple of years ago I wrote a magazine article on volunteer vacations. While interviewing people who combined a love of travel with charity work, I talked to several everyday heroes who rolled up their sleeves to work in Romanian Failure-To-Thrive baby clinics. They reported that children were still being abandoned due to the lingering poverty and ignorance from the Ceausescu regime, and so many babies needed holding and feeding that many of these volunteers declined the sightseeing part of their trips in favor of working full-time with the children.

Astonishingly (and inspiring to me about the higher nature of some humans among us), every single person I interviewed returned for a second and third tour of duty to reach out and help. They all were very emotional when I spoke with them. The horror they experienced was overwhelming and their voices quivered in the retelling. One woman brought her daughter with her and the daughter has decided to go into international law to help protect children. Another man was a banker who devotes a month each year to go to Romania and help out.

The most important and urgent case Alice Miller makes in this book is that we must legislate firmly against child abuse and be selective about the political leaders we elect to represent us.Breaking Down the Wall of Silence should be read by all who have children, or are considering having children. That said, if one is caring enough to even know about Alice Miller, then one is probably preaching to the choir.

I just watched a documentary called Deliver Us From Evil about the Catholic Church’s systematic repression and cover-up of child abuse by priests. Back in 2005, Pope Benedict was facing a ground-breaking lawsuit accusing him of conspiring to cover up the rapes of boys by a seminarian. He asked President George W. Bush, Jr. for immunity from lawsuits in the United States. It was granted.

I’ve been reading Alice Miller’s books for a long time and believe she is still a voice in the wilderness calling upon us to evolve as human beings. How do we do this? Respect children and implement laws that enforce greater protection against violence perpetuated on children. Punish people and institutions that inflict and hide abuse. The psychiatric field must also offer a model of treatment that encourages practitioners to be courageous, enlightened witnesses and guides for their patients. Gatekeepers in this field must be constantly on the alert for traumatized therapists seeking to exploit, consciously or unconsciously, victims of abuse. These wolves in sheep’s clothing must be weeded out of the field.

Alice Miller praises feminists for being pioneering whistle blowers on abuse and offers hope when she writes toward the end: “Fortunately the number of therapists who are trained in the new methods is now growing.”

This is a beautiful, fierce, necessary book written by an emotionally intelligent lioness who continues her efforts to break through the wall—one brick, one book— at a time. I highly recommend it.

Written by: Cheryl Reeves, March 5th 2009