Quotes from Alice Miller

Depression as Denial of the Self Depression consists of a denial of one's own emotional reactions. This denial begins in the service of an absolutely essential adaptation during childhood and indicates a very early injury. There are many children who have not been free, right from the beginning, to experience the very simplest of feelings, such as discontent, anger, rage, pain, even hunger—and, of course, enjoyment of their own bodies.

the damage done to us during our childhood cannot be undone, since we cannot change anything in our past. we can repair ourselves and gain our lost integrity by choosing to look more honestly at the knowledge that is stored inside our bodies and bringing that knowledge closer to our awareness.

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.

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.

Society chooses to disregard the mistreatment of children, judging it to be altogether normal because it is so commonplace.

Clinging uncritically to traditional ideas and beliefs often serves to obscure or deny real facts of our life history.

Those children who are beaten will in turn give beatings, those who are intimidated will be intimidating, those who are humiliated will impose humiliation, and those whose souls are murdered will murder.

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.

A system of morality tells us what to do and what not to do, but it cannot tell us what we should feel. Genuine feelings cannot be produced, nor can they be eradicated.

Nobody is born evil.

All children are born to grow, to develop, to live, to love, and to articulate their needs and feelings for their self-protection.

To forget and to repress would be a good solution if there were no more to it than that. But repressed pain blocks emotional life and leads to physical symptoms. And the worst thing is that although the feelings of the abused child have been silenced at the point of origin, that is, in the presence of those who caused the pain, they find their voice when the battered child has children of his own.

For the human soul is virtually indestructible, and its ability to rise from the ashes remains as long as the body draws breath.

Theoretically, I can imagine that someday we will regard or children not add creatures to manipulate or to change but rather as messengers from a world we once deeply knew, but which we have long since forgotten, who can reveal to us more about the true secrets of life, and also our own lives, than our parents were ever able to.

Narcissistic cathexis of the child by the mother does not exclude emotional devotion. On the contrary, she loves the child as her self-object, excessively, though not in the manner that he needs, and always on the condition that he presents his false self. This is no obstacle to the development of intellectual abilities, but it is one to the unfolding of an authentic emotional life.

Hesse, like so many gifted children, was so difficult for his parents to bear not despite but because of his inner riches. Often a child's very gifts (his great intensity of feeling, depth of experience, curiosity, intelligence, quickness—and his ability to be critical) will confront his parents with conflicts that they have long sought to keep at bay by means of rules and regulations.

The automatic, natural contact with his own emotions and needs gives an individual strength and self-esteem. He may experience his feelings—sadness, despair, or the need for help—without fear of making the mother insecure. He can allow himself to be afraid when he is threatened, angry when his wishes are not fulfilled. He knows not only what he does not want but also what he wants and is able to express his wants, irrespective of whether he will be loved or hated for it.

FREQUENTLY, PHYSICAL ILLNESSES are the body's response to permanent disregard of its vital functions. One of our most vital functions is an ability to listen to the true story of our own lives.

Genuine feelings are never the product of conscious effort. They are quite simply there, and they are there for a very good reason, even if that reason is not always apparent.

I've spoken of the patient Peter who was obsessively forced to make conquests with women, to seduce and then to abandon them, until he was at last able to experience how he himself had repeatedly been abandoned by his mother.

They recount their earliest memories without any sympathy for the child they once were

Not to take one's own suffering seriously, to make light of it or even to laugh at it, is considered good manners in our culture.

tragic and painful state of being separated from his true self, to which doctors refer offhandedly as depression.

The more we idealized the past, however, and refuse to acknowledge or childhood sufferings, the more we pass them on unconsciously to the next generation.