The true opposite of depression is not gaiety or absence of pain, but vitality: the freedom to experience spontaneous feelings. Alice Miller More Quotes by Alice Miller More Quotes From Alice Miller If we do not work on all three levels -- body, feeling, mind -- the symptoms of our distress will keep returning, as the body goes on repeating the story stored in its cells until it is finally listened to and understood. Alice Miller cells mind feelings People whose integrity has not been damaged in childhood, who were protected, respected, and treated with honesty by their parents, will be-both in their youth and in adulthood-intelligent, responsive, empathic, and highly sensitive. They will take pleasure in life and will not feel any need to kill or even hurt others or themselves. They will use their power to defend themselves, not to attack others. They will not be able to do otherwise than respect and protect those weaker than themselves, including their children, because this is what they have learned from their own experience. Alice Miller honesty hurt children The truth about our childhood is stored up in our body, and although we can repress it, we can never alter it. Our intellect can be deceived, our feelings manipulated, and conceptions confused, and our body tricked with medication. But someday our body will present its bill, for it is as incorruptible as a child, who, still whole in spirit, will accept no compromises or excuses, and it will not stop tormenting us until we stop evading the truth. Alice Miller childhood confused children The more we idealize the past and refuse to acknowledge our childhood sufferings, the more we pass them on unconsciously to the next generation. Alice Miller childhood suffering past In the short term, corporal punishment may produce obedience. But it is a fact documented by research that in the long term the results are inability to learn, violence and rage, bullying, cruelty, inability to feel another's pain, especially that of one's own children, even drug addiction and suicide, unless there are enlightened or at least helping witnesses on hand to prevent that development. Alice Miller bullying suicide children The achievement of freedom is hardly possible without the felt mourning. This ability to mourn, i.e, to give up the illusion of a happy childhood, can restore vitality and creativity if a person is able to experience that he was never loved as a child for what he was, but for his achievements, success and good qualities. And that he sacrificed his childhood for this love, this will shake him very deeply. Alice Miller giving-up self-esteem children someday we will regard our children not as 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. Alice Miller change life children 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. Alice Miller umpires parent children An unacknowledged trauma is like a wound that never heals over and may start to bleed again at any time. Alice Miller trauma heal may The art of not experiencing feelings. A child can experience her feelings only when there is somebody there who accepts her fully, understands her, and supports her. If that person is missing, if the child must risk losing the mother's love of her substitute in order to feel, then she will repress emotions. Alice Miller mother children art Many people suffer all their lives from this oppressive feeling of guilt, the sense of not having lived up to their parents' expectations. This feeling is stronger than any intellectual insight they might have, that it is not a child's task or duty to satisfy his parents needs. No argument can overcome these guilt feelings, for they have their beginnings in life's earliest periods, and from that they derive their intensity and obduracy. Alice Miller expectations children people What is addiction, really? It is a sign, a signal, a symptom of distress. It is a language that tells us about a plight that must be understood. Alice Miller recovery addiction pain For the human soul is virtually indestructible, and its ability to rise from the ashes remains as long as the body draws breath. Alice Miller ashes soul long It is not true that evil, destructiveness , and perversion inevitably form part of human existence, no matter how often this is maintained. But it is true that we are daily producing more evil and, with it, an ocean of suffering for millions that is absolutely avoidable. When one day the ignorance arising from childhood repression is eliminated and humanity has awakened, an end can be put to this production of evil. Alice Miller ocean ignorance evil We don't yet know, above all, what the world might be like if children were to grow up without being subjected to humiliation, if parents would respect them and take them seriously as people. Alice Miller growing-up learning children We can never do the right thing as long as we are out to please someone else. Alice Miller please self-esteem long The victimization of children is nowhere forbidden; what is forbidden is to write about it. Alice Miller child-abuse writing children Contempt is the weapon of the weak and a defense against one's own despised and unwanted feelings. Alice Miller warrior defense feelings I have never known a patient to portray his parents more negatively than he actually experienced them in childhood but always more positively--because idealization of his parents was essential for his survival. Alice Miller childhood survival parent 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. Alice Miller effort reason feelings
