nd perhaps not forever. For the human soul is virtually indestructible, and its ability to rise from the ashes remains as long as the body draws breath."

"I was amazed to discover that I had been an abused child, that from the very beginning of my life I had no choice but to totally comply with the needs and feelings of my mother and to ignore my own."

“I realize that my parents and teachers were not allowed to feel and thus they were convinced and believed what they did was right and passed along their dysfunction without ‘even the trace of a bad conscience.’"

"Had just one person understood what was happening and come to my defense, it might have changed my entire life."

“My intellectual conceptual training as a psychologist is ‘false, deceptive and disastrous.’"

“I got in touch with my repressed feelings

Alice Miller was trained as a psychotherapist. In 1979, after twenty years of practicing psychoanalysis, she decided psychoanalysis was not the best way to help people. She came to believe that it would be more helpful to write about the parent-child relationship. She wanted people to see how parents and teachers unintentionally damage children, even when they believe they are acting in the best interests of the child. She wanted people to see how the belief that hurting children is good for them has been perpetuated from one generation to the next. She is still one of the most articulate children's advocates writing today.

“...It is possible to resolve childhood repression safely and without confusion - something that has always been disputed by the most respected schools of thought.”

"Regression to the stage of early infancy is not a suitable method in and of itself. Such a regression can only be effective if it happens in the natural course of therapy and if the client is able to maintain adult consciousness at the same time.”

"The results of any traumatic experience, such as abuse, can only be resolved by experiencing, articulating, and judging every facet of the original experience within a process of careful therapeutic disclosure.”

"Anyone who has ever been a mother or father and is at all honest knows from experience how difficult it can be for parents to accept certain aspects of their children. It is especially painful to have to admit this if we really love our child and want to respect his or her individuality yet are unable to do so."

"Every smack is a humiliation."

“Physical cruelty and emotional humiliation not only leave their marks on children, they also inflict a disastrous imprint of the future of our society. Information on the effects of the "well-meant smack" should therefore be part and parcel of courses for expectant mothers and of counseling for parents.” The claim that mild punishments (slaps or smacks) have no detrimental effect is still widespread because we got this message very early from our parents who had taken it over from their own parents. Unfortunately, the main damage it causes is precisely the broad dissemination of this conviction. The result of which is that each successive generation is subjected to the tragic effects of so called physical "correction."

"Hitler, Stalin, Mao and other dictators were exposed to severe physical mistreatment in childhood and refused to face up to the fact later. Instead of seeing and feeling what had happened to them, they avenged themselves vicariously by killing millions of people. And millions of others helped them to do so. If the legislation we are advocating had existed the time, those millions would simply have refused to perpetrate acts of cruelty at the command of crazed political leaders."

"Children who become too aware of things are punished for it and internalize the coercion to such an extent that as adults they give up the search for awareness. But because some people cannot renounce this search in spite of coercion, there is justifiable hope that regardless of the ever-increasing application of technology to the field of psychological knowledge, Kafka's vision of the penal colony with its efficient, scientifically minded persecutors and their passive victims is valid only for certain areas of our live and perhaps not forever. For the human soul is virtually indestructible, and its ability to rise from the ashes remains as long as the body draws breath."

"I was amazed to discover that I had been an abused child, that from the very beginning of my life I had no choice but to totally comply with the needs and feelings of my mother and to ignore my own."

“I realize that my parents and teachers were not allowed to feel and thus they were convinced and believed what they did was right and passed along their dysfunction without ‘even the trace of a bad conscience.’"

"Had just one person understood what was happening and come to my defense, it might have changed my entire life."

“My intellectual conceptual training as a psychologist is ‘false, deceptive and disastrous.’"

“I got in touch with my repressed feelings f

y is not a suitable method in and of itself. Such a regression can only be effective if it happens in the natural course of therapy and if the client is able to maintain adult consciousness at the same time.”

"The results of any traumatic experience, such as abuse, can only be resolved by experiencing, articulating, and judging every facet of the original experience within a process of careful therapeutic disclosure.”

"Anyone who has ever been a mother or father and is at all honest knows from experience how difficult it can be for parents to accept certain aspects of their children. It is especially painful to have to admit this if we really love our child and want to respect his or her individuality yet are unable to do so."

"Every smack is a humiliation."

“Physical cruelty and emotional humiliation not only leave their marks on children, they also inflict a disastrous imprint of the future of our society. Information on the effects of the "well-meant smack" should therefore be part and parcel of courses for expectant mothers and of counseling for parents.” The claim that mild punishments (slaps or smacks) have no detrimental effect is still widespread because we got this message very early from our parents who had taken it over from their own parents. Unfortunately, the main damage it causes is precisely the broad dissemination of this conviction. The result of which is that each successive generation is subjected to the tragic effects of so called physical "correction."

"Hitler, Stalin, Mao and other dictators were exposed to severe physical mistreatment in childhood and refused to face up to the fact later. Instead of seeing and feeling what had happened to them, they avenged themselves vicariously by killing millions of people. And millions of others helped them to do so. If the legislation we are advocating had existed the time, those millions would simply have refused to perpetrate acts of cruelty at the command of crazed political leaders."

"Children who become too aware of things are punished for it and internalize the coercion to such an extent that as adults they give up the search for awareness. But because some people cannot renounce this search in spite of coercion, there is justifiable hope that regardless of the ever-increasing application of technology to the field of psychological knowledge, Kafka's vision of the penal colony with its efficient, scientifically minded persecutors and their passive victims is valid only for certain areas of our live and perhaps not forever. For the human soul is virtually indestructible, and its ability to rise from the ashes remains as long as the body draws breath."

"I was amazed to discover that I had been an abused child, that from the very beginning of my life I had no choice but to totally comply with the needs and feelings of my mother and to ignore my own."

“I realize that my parents and teachers were not allowed to feel and thus they were convinced and believed what they did was right and passed along their dysfunction without ‘even the trace of a bad conscience.’"

"Had just one person understood what was happening and come to my defense, it might have changed my entire life."

“My intellectual conceptual training as a psychologist is ‘false, deceptive and disastrous.’"

“I got in touch with my repressed feelings

e their marks on children, they also inflict a disastrous imprint of the future of our society. Information on the effects of the "well-meant smack" should therefore be part and parcel of courses for expectant mothers and of counseling for parents.” The claim that mild punishments (slaps or smacks) have no detrimental effect is still widespread because we got this message very early from our parents who had taken it over from their own parents. Unfortunately, the main damage it causes is precisely the broad dissemination of this conviction. The result of which is that each successive generation is subjected to the tragic effects of so called physical "correction."

"Hitler, Stalin, Mao and other dictators were exposed to severe physical mistreatment in childhood and refused to face up to the fact later. Instead of seeing and feeling what had happened to them, they avenged themselves vicariously by killing millions of people. And millions of others helped them to do so. If the legislation we are advocating had existed the time, those millions would simply have refused to perpetrate acts of cruelty at the command of crazed political leaders."

"Children who become too aware of things are punished for it and internalize the coercion to such an extent that as adults they give up the search for awareness. But because some people cannot renounce this search in spite of coercion, there is justifiable hope that regardless of the ever-increasing application of technology to the field of psychological knowledge, Kafka's vision of the penal colony with its efficient, scientifically minded persecutors and their passive victims is valid only for certain areas of our live and perhaps not forever. For the human soul is virtually indestructible, and its ability to rise from the ashes remains as long as the body draws breath."

"I was amazed to discover that I had been an abused child, that from the very beginning of my life I had no choice but to totally comply with the needs and feelings of my mother and to ignore my own."

“I realize that my parents and teachers were not allowed to feel and thus they were convinced and believed what they did was right and passed along their dysfunction without ‘even the trace of a bad conscience.’"

"Had just one person understood what was happening and come to my defense, it might have changed my entire life."

“My intellectual conceptual training as a psychologist is ‘false, deceptive and disastrous.’"

“I got in touch with my repressed feelings

g what had happened to them, they avenged themselves vicariously by killing millions of people. And millions of others helped them to do so. If the legislation we are advocating had existed the time, those millions would simply have refused to perpetrate acts of cruelty at the command of crazed political leaders."

"Children who become too aware of things are punished for it and internalize the coercion to such an extent that as adults they give up the search for awareness. But because some people cannot renounce this search in spite of coercion, there is justifiable hope that regardless of the ever-increasing application of technology to the field of psychological knowledge, Kafka's vision of the penal colony with its efficient, scientifically minded persecutors and their passive victims is valid only for certain areas of our live and perhaps not forever. For the human soul is virtually indestructible, and its ability to rise from the ashes remains as long as the body draws breath."

"I was amazed to discover that I had been an abused child, that from the very beginning of my life I had no choice but to totally comply with the needs and feelings of my mother and to ignore my own."

“I realize that my parents and teachers were not allowed to feel and thus they were convinced and believed what they did was right and passed along their dysfunction without ‘even the trace of a bad conscience.’"

"Had just one person understood what was happening and come to my defense, it might have changed my entire life."

“My intellectual conceptual training as a psychologist is ‘false, deceptive and disastrous.’"

“I got in touch with my repressed feelings

nd perhaps not forever. For the human soul is virtually indestructible, and its ability to rise from the ashes remains as long as the body draws breath."

"I was amazed to discover that I had been an abused child, that from the very beginning of my life I had no choice but to totally comply with the needs and feelings of my mother and to ignore my own."

“I realize that my parents and teachers were not allowed to feel and thus they were convinced and believed what they did was right and passed along their dysfunction without ‘even the trace of a bad conscience.’"

"Had just one person understood what was happening and come to my defense, it might have changed my entire life."

“My intellectual conceptual training as a psychologist is ‘false, deceptive and disastrous.’"

“I got in touch with my repressed feelings first through art as an adult. I learned to follow my impulses."

"...the conventional methods of psychoanalysis block the creativity of patients as well as analysts."

“I want to help others avoid the slowness of their path of discovery and for this I have been thanked but also received much hostility.”

“I realized I couldn't change my parents in the slightest, but felt compelled to try to help young parents avoid abusing their power.”

“I speak from the child's perspective, because that is where my knowledge came from.”

“... if we are willing to open our eyes to the suffering of the child we will soon see that it lies within us as adults either to turn the newborn into a monsters by the way we treat them, or to let them grow up into feeling--and therefore responsible--human beings.”

"Don't ever dare to take your college as a matter of course - because, like democracy and freedom, many people you'll never know have broken their hearts to get it for you.”

"The truth about childhood, as many of us have had to endure it, is inconceivable, scandalous, painful. Not uncommonly, it is monstrous. Invariably, it is repressed. To be confronted with this truth all at once and to try to integrate it into our consciousness, however ardently we may wish it, is clearly impossible.”

"When a woman like that whom I've seen so much, All of a sudden drops out of touch; Is always busy and never can, Spare you a moment, it means a man.”

"I was not out to paint beautiful pictures; even painting good pictures was not important to me. I wanted only to help the truth burst forth.”

"If it's very painful for you to criticize your friends - you're safe in doing it. But if you take the slightest pleasure in it, that's the time to hold your tongue.”

"The capacity of the human organism to bear pain is, for our own protection, limited. All attempts to overstep this natural threshold by resolving repression in a violent manner will, as with every other form of violation, have negative and often dangerous consequences.”

"A child too, can never grasp the fact that the same mother who cooks so well, is so concerned about his cough, and helps so kindly with his homework, in some circumstance has no more feeling than a wall of his hidden inner world”

"Contempt is the weapon of the weak and a defense against one's own despised and unwanted feelings.”