Alice Miller Audio [English]

Interview given by Alice Miller to Borut Petrovic Jesenovec

Questions:
Among thousands of other folk tales [Little Red Riding-Hood] stands out as incredibly popular. What does it tell us about our attitude to children in our culture?
I am always shocked by the "official" interpretation that the mother of Little Red Riding-Hood is well-intended and caring. She sends her young daughter into a dangerous forest explaining that this is an honourable task (poor grandmother is sick after all). I find this mother cruel, wicked, even perverse. Would you agree?
When I wanted to talk about some of the nasty aspects of my childhood, I was turned down and reminded that everything has its good and its bad side and that’s why we should concentrate on the bright side of life and adopt a positive attitude. In such argumentation even abuse has something valuable. How would you react to such relativisation and relativism?
How would you define abuse?
How many people do you think were abused in their childhood?
Human blindness to abuse can be astonishing. Even when confronted with their own obvious abuse, people still believe in the myth of being loved, and keep abusing their children (and children of others). How would you most effectively "open their eyes" to what they are doing? Is this possible at all?
People normally prefer to deny that they were abused. Would you interpret eating disorders, obsession with diets, nail biting, "non-offensive social drinking", thinking about suicide, asthma, taking drugs or even the self-destructive "need" for unhealthy junk food or cigarettes as unambiguous proofs of emotional or physical abuse?
How can we become friends with our body which demands extremely unpleasant truth?
The distinction between feelings (Gefühle) and emotions (Emotionen) is fundamental for understanding the mechanism of denial. Why is it so important to know the difference?
A child must repress the experience of abuse in order to survive. How does such a life-enhancing mechanism transform itself into a life-stifling one?
Has permissive education similar effects [as authoritarian education (poisonous pedagogy)]?
When I had to prepare a short summary of your book, I wrote that you discuss the abuse of gifted children. Then I was reminded that I should avoid the term abuse, because it is too offensive, brutal and revolting. Instead I had to write that you deal with parents’ "non-understanding" and "disregard" of their children. What’s your comment?
You wrote: "Traumata stored in the brains but denied by our conscious minds will always be visited on the next generation." Can you describe this mechanism? Is the innocence of the infant bound to be taken away simply because it was born to parents who deny traumata?
Why is a child who is alive, genuine and pure, in their eyes unbearable, even sinful, and must by all means be mutilated so he/she would become similar to them?

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Interview given by Alice Miller to Borut Petrovic Jesenovec for the magazine ONA (Slovenia)

Questions:
How did you discover that the only function of ["Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother"] is in fact manipulation and subordination of the child?
You go so far as to state that the fourth commandment causes physical ailments. How would you explain this link? Did it cause physical ailments in your case?
Is love, seasoned with 'only' occasional 'educational' spanking, possible?
Why is spanking always wrong?
Many despicable acts are committed in the name of parental love. How would you define real parental love?
You speak of child abuse in our cultures as A Forbidden Issue. Why is this so? What is needed to change this state of affairs?
How can we direct hatred, rage and anger at the proper recipient (and not at ourselves or our partners)?
One of the basic psychological truths is that persons emotionally deprived in childhood hope all their lives to receive the love denied to them. Why is it so hard to accept that we weren't important to anyone? Many even prefer to commit suicide instead.
While we are on the subject, Slovenia is famous for its high percentage of suicides. How would you tackle this problem?
How do you think morality and ethics come about? Why does someone become (im)moral?
Religious education teaches us to forgive our tormentors. Should we really forgive them? Is it in fact possible to do so?
Is compassion for Milosevic or Saddam Hussein acceptable?
The fiercest adorers of their parents are those who were the most emotionally deprived by them. There is a very cruel mechanism at work here and it produces a very pessimistic vision of life. Is there hope for the badly wounded?
Is there hope for those who don't find a witness?
Positive thinking is just as harmful as religious injunctions to forgive and love those who hate us. Should we avoid new age self-help manuals?
What are the political consequences of your writing?
What is wrong with current psychoanalytic practice? Why were you 'expelled' from the psychological movement?
You describe the emotional life of quite a few of the most highly regarded writers of the modern age. Who would you cite as the example of a hero who successfully overcame the traumatic conflict with his/her parents?

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The Longest Journey - or What Can We Expect from Psychotherapy?
"It has taken me all my life to allow myself to be what I am and to listen to what my inner self is telling me, more and more directly, without waiting for permission from others or currying approval from people symbolizing my parents."
"As the journey to ourselves is a life-long journey, its end will not coincide with the end of therapy. But successful therapy should have helped us to discover and perceive our own genuine needs and to learn to satisfy them. This is precisely what individuals wounded in early childhood have never been able to do."

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"It is not our feelings that make us a danger to ourselves and our environment, it is the dissociation of those feelings caused by our fear of them. It is here that we must seek the reasons for amok killers, for suicide bombers, and for the countless court judges who close their eyes to the real causes of crime, so as to spare the parents of the delinquents and to keep their own histories in the dark."

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Read more about this podcast here:
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Read more about this podcast here:
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Text: http://www.alice-miller.com/articles_en.php?lang=en&nid=55&grp=11
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Read more about this podcast here:
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Read more about this podcast here:
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Read more about this podcast here:
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Text: http://www.alice-miller.com/articles_en.php?lang=en&nid=52&grp=11
Picture: https://www.flickr.com/photos/crazymandi/7632203602/in/photostream/