Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Alice Miller says it like it is, she sticks to the facts

"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, and because it is this knowledge (and not the experience of cruelty) that has been stored up inside them from the beginning. It will be inconceivable to such people that earlier generations had to build up a gigantic war industry in order to feel comfortable and safe in this world. Since it will not be their unconscious drive in life to ward off intimidation experienced at a very early age, they will be able to deal with attempts at intimidation in their adult life more rationally and more creatively." -- Alice Miller

above excerpt from the Afterword to the Second Edition (1984) of the book For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence by Alice Miller http://www.nospank.net/fyog19.htm#afterword

from Project NoSpank www.nospank.net/main-x.htm: the entire book of For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence by Alice Miller http://www.nospank.net/fyog.htm

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