Editing Alice Miller (psychologist) (section)

===''Banished Knowledge''<small> (''Das verbannte Wissen'', 1988) </small>===

In this more personal book Miller said that she herself was abused as a child. She also introduced the fundamental concept of "enlightened witness": a person who was willing to support a harmed individual, empathise with her and help her to gain understanding of her own biographical past.

''Banished Knowledge'' is autobiographical in another sense. It is a pointer in Miller's thoroughgoing [[apostasy]] from her own profession—psychoanalysis. She believed society was colluding with Freud's theories in order to not know the truth about our childhood, a truth that human cultures have "banished." She concluded that the feelings of [[guilt (emotion)|guilt]] instilled in our minds since our most tender years reinforce our repression even in the psychoanalytic profession.