The Banished Knowledge

Alice Miller, I am a fan. Infor helped me let go of some stuff

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding... the prophetI checked this book out from the library the words "Banished Knowledge" intrigued me 1990 version. Already knew most of what was written but to have someone else actually write it wow! She had the courage, Thank you!reading Saint Nicholas part made me furious. Furious because I have seen it before in churches, in blackmailing & bribing for behavior, or just plain "because" no reason at all. What makes it worst is that I don't stop them from hurting their child, they usually kill the messenger and don't want to see the truth.The excerpt "The Child Sets Limits" to open eyes gently. That was a great positive side of a book that explores the truth.I cried on page 79 child: "she has no choice but to accept any closeness she is offered rather than be destroyed." I'm grateful for a mother who at least mentioned to me all the mistakes she has done rasing us. And all the mistakes she is making now. Specially saying NO just because she felt like she needed control. She blames herself for anything we "her children do wrong" P.S. I agree with her on the autism and if one is to research for the truth; One would find that many illnesses are because of emotional states. Taboo subjects always makes people angry!

Miller may make some extreme and perhaps unsupportable statements now and then, and don't expect a course in scientific method on every page, but her books lay out how the mind works more clearly and thoroughly than anything else I know of. Trying to understand the child, or the parent, or the mind, or trauma, or yourself without thoroughly digesting Miller is really unthinkable. Other excellent books by Miller include Drama of the Gifted Child (also called "Prisoners of Childhood") [read the original version, currently available only in hardcover] and For Your Own Good. As for other authors, important works on childhood trauma include Making Sense of Suffering by J. Konrad Stettbacher, Betrayal Trauma by Jennifer Freyd, and Soul Murder by Morton Schatzman (don't confuse this latter book with one of the same title by Leonard Schengold). Schatzman's book is inexplicably out of print, but it's worth getting from the library. An excellent, simple, and highly practical book is Toxic Parents by Susan Forward.

If society is seriously interested in declining child abuse it must stop trivializing the fact, read "Banished Knowledge," by Alice Miller, to comprehend the consequences, then proceed and support the need. Then, and only then, will they comprehend that psychologists who try to help are practicing with the limitation of arcane theories, mostly without having personal experience about the subject. In too many cases theories are missing the point and are forcing victims to accept the training of a Ph.D. as salubrious. Two years ago, discouraged and disappointed I ended my twelfth session with a psychologist after she tried different theoretical approaches, when she asked helplessly, "What kind of theory fits you?" In my desperation to relieve the pain of memory I was pressed into obscure methods, declared as the only way or solution. In this kind of approach, again, harm is done. My personal experience with format theories like "one fits all," had lead me to more desperation than healing. Because self censoring psychologists approach child abuse with dogmas, instead of listening for an eventual true lead, they should find individual methods for the painful experience expressed by the victim in a descriptive way. I do not knock the honest attempt of scientific studies, which I trust, someday, will lead to more insight into this human behavior; on the contrary, I urge Psychology to recognize that all scientific approaches are developed by individual minds. In spite of all knowledge available, everything we do has limitations, and the possibilities of errors are influencing the result. We must consider these facts before we imply otherwise and call others wrong. Having experienced verbal, mental, physical and spiritual abuse, molestation, rape, incest and the horror of being sold into slavery as a child, I challenge all researchers to find acceptable new ways with more concern for the abused individual in seeing old methods with more criticism and adopting other new! ly known theories, as Alice Miller has done. Progress or improvement cannot be reached by continually using existing theories of psychological approach, which were by honest observation unsuccessful. Psychology should objectively consider the statements by studied individuals as guidelines, instead of seeking desperately convenient, society- pleasing or self-glorifying solutions, and establishing dogmas which are closing forever doors for future developments or final solutions about this unbalanced human behavior of child abuse. I agree wholeheartedly with Alice Miller's theory described in "Banished Knowledge" for this simple reason, it applies to me.

Several years ago while I was an undergraduate majoring in Mental Health, I read Banished Knowledge. At the time I was also engaged in personal psychotherapy, getting in touch with the traumas of my past. Banished Knowledge was the first book I read that really "put it out there". No glossing over issues, no excuses for errs committed by others, no shiny marketing techniques to make the subject more palatable- Alice Miller just stuck the truth right out there. the book changed my life. Now, after completing a master's degree in counseling, Banished Knowledge is still the book I most reccomend. Not only does Alice Miller eloquently describe what trauma is, but she describes the differnce between blame and accountability when attempting to understand one's perpetrator. At times, the truth is hard, but the victory of understanding one's own wounds is freeing in the end.