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The reason why parents mistreat their children has less to do with character and temperament than with the fact that they were mistreated themselves and were not permitted to defend themselves.
Alice Miller
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Alice Miller
Age: 87 †
Born: 1923
Born: January 12
Died: 2010
Died: April 14
Painter
Psychologist
Sociologist
Writer
Piotrkow Trybunalski
Children
Defend
Parents
Parent
Less
Fact
Mistreat
Facts
Mistreated
Character
Permitted
Reason
Temperament
More quotes by Alice Miller
If a mother respects both herself and her child from his very first day onward, she will never need to teach him respect for others.
Alice Miller
There are people who have benefited from therapy without being confronted with the past at all.
Alice Miller
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.
Alice Miller
The only possible recourse a baby has when his screams are ignored is to repress his distress, which is tantamount to mutilating his soul, for the result is an interference with his ability to feel, to be aware, and to remember.
Alice Miller
Wherever I look, I see signs of the commandment to honor one's parents and nowhere of a commandment that calls for the respect of a child.
Alice Miller
That probably greatest of narcissistic wounds -- not to have been loved just as one truly was -- cannot heal without the work of mourning.
Alice Miller
The art of not experiencing feelings. A child can experience her feelings only when there is somebody there who accepts her fully, understands her, and supports her. If that person is missing, if the child must risk losing the mother's love of her substitute in order to feel, then she will repress emotions.
Alice Miller
The true opposite of depression is not gaiety or absence of pain, but vitality: the freedom to experience spontaneous feelings.
Alice Miller
Society chooses to disregard the mistreatment of children, judging it to be altogether normal because it is so commonplace.
Alice Miller
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.
Alice Miller
Children who are respected learn respect. Children who are cared for learn to care for those weaker than themselves. Children who are loved for what they are cannot learn intolerance. In an environment such as this, they will develop their own ideals, which can be nothing other than humane, since they grew out of the experience of love.
Alice Miller
Empathy grows as we learn.
Alice Miller
Genuine feelings cannot be produced, nor can they be eradicated. We can only repress them, delude ourselves, and deceive our bodies. The body sticks to the facts.
Alice Miller
Child abuse damages a person for life and that damage is in no way diminished by the ignorance of the perpetrator. It is only with the uncovering of the complete truth as it affects all those involved that a genuinely viable solution can be found to the dangers of child abuse.
Alice Miller
The victimization of children is nowhere forbidden what is forbidden is to write about it.
Alice Miller
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.
Alice Miller
We are still barely conscious of how harmful it is to treat children in a degrading manner. Treating them with respect and recognizing the consequences of their being humiliated are by no means intellectual matters otherwise, their importance would long since have been generally recognized.
Alice Miller
We can never do the right thing as long as we are out to please someone else.
Alice Miller
Where there had been only fearful emptiness or equally frightening grandiose fantasies, an unexpected wealth of vitality is now discovered. This is not a homecoming, since this home has never before existed. It is the creation of home.
Alice Miller
Depression leads him close to his wounds, but only the mourning for what he has missed, missed at the crucial time, can lead to real healing.
Alice Miller
