Editing Alice Miller (psychologist) (section)

==Work==
Miller extended the [[trauma model]] to include all forms of child abuse, including those that were commonly accepted (such as [[spanking]]), which she called ''[[poisonous pedagogy]]'', a non-literal translation of [[Katharina Rutschky]]'s ''Schwarze Pädagogik'' (black or dark pedagogy/imprinting).<ref name="rutschky note"/><ref>{{cite book|last=Miller|first=Alice|title=Por tu propio bien|publisher=TusQuets|year=1985|location=Barcelona|pages=17–95}}</ref>

Drawing upon the work of [[psychohistory]], Miller analyzed writers [[Virginia Woolf]], [[Franz Kafka]] and others to find links between their [[childhood trauma]]s and the course and outcome of their lives.<ref>{{cite book|last=Miller|first=Alice|title=El cuerpo nunca miente|publisher=TusQuets|year=2005|location=Barcelona|pages=37–41 & 48–50}}</ref>

The introduction to the first chapter in Miller's first book, ''The Drama of the Gifted Child'', first published in 1979, contains a line that summarises her core view. In it, she writes:

{{blockquote|Experience has taught us that we have only one enduring weapon in our struggle against mental illness: the emotional discovery and emotional acceptance of the truth in the individual and unique history of our childhood.<ref>{{cite book|last=Miller|first=Alice|title=El drama del niño dotado|publisher=TusQuets|year=2001|location=Barcelona|page=15}}</ref>}}

In the 1990s, Miller strongly supported a new method developed by Konrad Stettbacher, who himself was later charged with incidents of [[sexual abuse]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lukesch.ch/Text95_18.htm|title=Barbara Lukesch: Das Drama der begabten Dame: Alice Miller steht wegen eines Scharlatans vor einem Scherbenhaufen|language=de|trans-title=Barbara Lukesch: The drama of the gifted lady: Alice Miller is in front of a pile of broken glass because of a charlatan|website=[[:de:Barbara Lukesch|Barbara Lukesch]]|date=29 June 1995|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080514175245/http://www.lukesch.ch/Text95_18.htm|archive-date=14 May 2008}}</ref> Miller learned of Stettbacher and his method from a book by [[Mariella Mehr]] titled ''Steinzeit'' (Stone Age). Having been strongly impressed by the book, Miller contacted Mehr in order to get the name of the therapist. From that time forward, Miller refused to make therapist or method recommendations. In open letters, Miller explained her decision and how she originally became Stettbacher's disciple, but in the end she distanced herself from him and his regressive therapies.<ref>Alice Miller: ''[http://www.primals.org/articles/amiller.html Communication to My Readers]''</ref><ref>[http://primal-page.com/janneke1.htm A Reaction To the Appendix To Alice Miller's Communication]</ref>

In her writings, Miller is careful to clarify that by "abuse" she does not only mean physical violence or sexual abuse, she is also concerned with [[psychological abuse]] perpetrated by one or both parents on their child; this is difficult to identify and deal with because the abused person is likely to conceal it from themselves and may not be aware of it until some event, or the onset of depression, requires it to be treated. Miller blamed psychologically abusive parents for the majority of [[neuroses]] and [[psychoses]]. She maintained that all instances of [[mental illness]], [[addiction]], [[crime]] and [[cult]]ism were ultimately caused by suppressed rage and pain as a result of subconscious childhood trauma that was not resolved emotionally, assisted by a helper, which she came to term an "enlightened witness." In all cultures, "sparing the parents is our supreme law," wrote Miller. Even [[psychiatrists]], psychoanalysts and [[clinical psychology|clinical psychologists]] were unconsciously afraid to blame parents for the [[mental disorder]]s of their clients, she contended. According to Miller, mental health professionals were also creatures of the poisonous pedagogy internalised in their own childhood. This explained why [[Honour thy father and thy mother|the Commandment "Honor thy parents"]] was one of the main targets in Miller's school of psychology.<ref>{{cite book|last=Miller|first=Alice|title=Breaking Down the Wall of Silence|publisher=Dutton/[[Penguin Books]]|year=1991|location=NY}} Miller's critique of the commandment is expanded in her book ''The Body Never Lies''</ref>

Miller called [[electroconvulsive therapy]] "a campaign against the act of remembering". In her book ''Abbruch der Schweigemauer'' (The Demolition of Silence), she also criticised [[psychotherapists]]' advice to clients to forgive their abusive parents, arguing that this could only hinder recovery through remembering and feeling childhood pain. It was her contention that the majority of therapists fear this truth and that they work under the influence of interpretations culled from both [[Western world|Western]] and [[Oriental]] religions, which preach forgiveness by the once-mistreated child. She believed that forgiveness did not resolve hatred, but covered it in a dangerous way in the grown adult: [[Displacement (psychology)|displacement]] on [[scapegoats]], as she discussed in her psycho-biographies of [[Adolf Hitler]] and [[Jürgen Bartsch]], both of whom she described as having suffered severe parental abuse.

A common denominator in Miller's writings is her explanation of why human beings prefer not to know about their own [[victimisation]] during childhood: to avoid unbearable pain. She believed that the unconscious command of the individual, not to be aware of how they were treated in childhood, led to [[Displacement (psychology)|displacement]]: the irresistible drive to repeat abusive parenting in the next generation of children or direct unconsciously the unresolved trauma against others ([[war]], [[terrorism]], [[Misdemeanor|delinquency]]),<ref name=YouTube>{{YouTube|o2hF2ujCeFw|The Roots Of Violence – Alice Miller's New Flyer 2008}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Miller|first=Alice|title=Thou Shalt Not Be Aware: Society's Betrayal of the Child|publisher=Meridan Printing|year=1984|location=NY}}</ref> or against themselves ([[eating disorder]]s, [[Addiction|drug addiction]], [[depression (mood)|depression]]).

===The roots of violence===

According to Alice Miller, worldwide violence has its roots in the fact that children are beaten all over the world, especially during their first years of life, when their brains become structured.<ref name=YouTube/> She said that the damage caused by this practice is devastating, but unfortunately hardly noticed by society.<ref>{{YouTube|_3gwKquelUE|Interview with Alice Miller on Austrian radio (German)}}</ref> She argued that as children are forbidden to defend themselves against the violence inflicted on them, they must suppress the natural reactions like rage and fear, and they discharge these strong emotions later as adults against their own children or whole peoples: "child abuse like beating and humiliating not only produces unhappy and confused children, not only destructive teenagers and abusive parents, but thus also a confused, irrationally functioning society". Miller stated that only through becoming aware of this dynamic can we break the chain of violence.<ref name=Alice-Miller.com/>