Alice Miller Opened my Eyes and Ears and Heart

When I found Alice Miller books in 1987, I read them all. At that moment I became a reader. Thank you, Alice Miller!

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: That’s the essence of inhumanity.”
-George Bernard Shaw

Breaking Down the Wall of Silence (Abbruch der Schweigemauer, 1990) by Alice Miller

Written in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Miller took to task the entirety of human culture. What she called the "wall of silence" is the metaphorical wall behind which society — academia, psychiatrists, clergy, politicians and members of the media — has sought to protect itself: denying the mind-destroying effects of child abuse. She also continued the autobiographical confession initiated in Banished Knowledge about her abusive mother. In Pictures of a Childhood: Sixty-six Watercolors and an Essay, Miller said that painting helped her to ponder deeply into her memories. In some of her paintings, Miller depicted baby Alice as swaddled, sometimes by an evil mother.
“ I betrayed that little girl [...]. Only in recent years, with the help of therapy, which enabled me to lift the veil on this repression bit by bit, could I allow myself to experience the pain and desperation, the powerlessness and justified fury of that abused child. Only then did the dimensions of this crime against the child I once was, become clear to me.”

In a The New York Times obituary of April 26, 2010 British psychologist Oliver James is quoted saying that Alice Miller "is almost as influential as R.D. Laing."

Miller's published books in English:

The Drama of the Gifted Child, (1978), revised in 1995 and re-published by Virago as The Drama of Being a Child. ISBN 1-86049-101-4
Prisoners of Childhood (1981) ISBN 0-465-06287-3
For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence (1983) ISBN 0-374-52269-3 (full text available online at no cost)
Thou Shalt Not Be Aware: Society's Betrayal of the Child (1984) ISBN 0-374-52543-9
Banished Knowledge: Facing Childhood Injuries ISBN 0-385-26762-2
The Untouched Key: Tracing Childhood Trauma in Creativity and Destructiveness ISBN 0-385-26764-9
Pictures of a Childhood: Sixty-six Watercolors and an Essay ISBN 0-374-23241-5
Paths of Life: Seven Scenarios (1999) ISBN 0-375-40379-5
Breaking Down the Wall of Silence: The Liberating Experience of Facing Painful Truth ISBN 0-525-93357-3
The Truth Will Set You Free: Overcoming Emotional Blindness (2001) ISBN 0-465-04584-7
The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Cruel Parenting (2005) ISBN 0-393-06065-9, Excerpt
Free From Lies: Discovering Your True Needs (2009) ISBN 978-0-393-06913-6