Alice Miller: Parenting

Alice Miller was Swiss psychologist. Explore interesting quotes on parenting.

Alice Miller: 48 quotes9 likes

“We don't yet know, above all, what the world might be like if children were to grow up without being subjected to humiliation, if parents would respect them and take them seriously as people.”

“I have never known a patient to portray his parents more negatively than he actually experienced them in childhood but always more positively--because idealization of his parents was essential for his survival.”

Source: Thou Shalt Not Be Aware : Society's Betrayal of the Child

“By refusing to forgive, I give up all illusions. Why should I forgive, when no one is asking me to? I mean, my parents refuse to understand and to know what they did to me. So why should I go on trying to understand and forgive my parents and whatever happened in their childhood, with things like psychoanalysis and transactional analysis? What's the use? Whom does it help? It doesn't help my parents to see the truth. But it does prevent me from experiencing my feelings, the feelings that would give me access to the truth. But under the bell-jar of forgiveness, feelings cannot and may not blossom freely.”

Breaking Down the Wall of Silence (Abbruch der Schweigemauer) (1990)

“In my own therapy it was my experience that it was precisely the opposite of forgiveness —namely, rebellion against mistreatment suffered, the recognition and condemnation of my parents' destructive opinions and actions, and the articulation of my own needs— that ultimately freed me from the past.”

Breaking Down the Wall of Silence (Abbruch der Schweigemauer) (1990)

“It is the resentment of the past, we are told, that is making us ill. In those by now familiar groups in which addicts and their relations go into therapy together, the following belief is invariably expressed. Only when you have forgiven your parents for everything they did to you can you get well. Even if both your parents were alcoholic, even if they mistreated, confused, exploited, beat, and totally overloaded you, you must forgive.”

Breaking Down the Wall of Silence (Abbruch der Schweigemauer) (1990)

“I cannot conceive of a society in which children are not mistreated, but respected and lovingly cared for, that would develop an ideology of forgiveness for incomprehensible cruelties. This ideology is indivisible with the command "Thou shalt not be aware" [of the cruelty your parents inflicted to you] and with the repetition of that cruelty on the next generation.”

Breaking Down the Wall of Silence (Abbruch der Schweigemauer) (1990)

“The danger does not lie with individuals, however criminal they may be. Far more, it lies in the ignorance of our entire society, which confirms these people in the lies that they were obliged to believe in childhood. Teachers, attorneys, doctors, social workers, priests, and other respected representatives of society protect parents from the mistreated child's every accusation and see to it that the truth about child abuse remains concealed. Even the child protection agencies insist that this crime, and this crime alone, should go unpunished.”

Breaking Down the Wall of Silence (Abbruch der Schweigemauer) (1990)

“Parents are indeed capable of routinely torturing their children without anyone interceding.”

Breaking Down the Wall of Silence (Abbruch der Schweigemauer) (1990)