Alice Miller died earlier this month. As the NYT reports:
“Humiliations, spankings and beatings, slaps in the face, betrayal, sexual exploitation, derision, neglect, etc. are all forms of mistreatment, because they injure the integrity and dignity of a child, even if their consequences are not visible right away,” she writes in an explanatory essay on childhood mistreatment and abuse on her Web site, alice-miller.com. “Beaten children very early on assimilate the violence they endured, which they may glorify and apply later as parents, in believing that they deserved the punishment and were beaten out of love.”
She took child abuse seriously and, for that, she deserves our thanks.
The Third Time is the Charm
8 months ago
1 comment:
Her books so helped me. I really liked her concept of the enlightened witness, someone who heard you and validated what you said without some moral judgment like you have to forgive. No you don't, you just have to name it.
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