Saturday, December 20, 2014

Letter to Charlie Sheen

Dear Charlie, 

You probably don’t remember me, but we met a long time ago at a topless bar in Phoenix, Arizona called Bourbon Street. I was a dancer there! Of all the famous people I saw during my 18-year career, you were definitely the most memorable to me. 

Since those days in the 1990s, I’ve made discoveries about the human condition and transformed my life thanks to the teachings of psychologist Alice Miller. I wrote the enclosed book, A Dance to Freedom, to show people how they too can break free from the lies and illusions that society tries to shove down everyone's throats. 

I’ve had an exciting life but I’ve never felt better than I do today. I’m completely free from the emotional prison that had kept me down and bound me to the authoritarian family members who raised me. I hope you’ll take a look at the book, as I believe it will help you better understand yourself and see those around you more clearly. 

All the best, 

Sylvie Imelda Shene


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Sunday, December 14, 2014

An Open Letter to all Responsible Politicians

February 2000

To: An open letter to all responsible politicians.

From: Alice Miller.  psychoanalyst, researcher and author of nine books concerning the influence of childhood on the adult's life and on society as a whole

According to recent newspaper reports, the British Government is planning to adopt in March 2000 legislation that would forbid parents beating their children with implements and on the head, but otherwise would allow smacking and slapping them without any limits of age. This information urges me to write you this letter because hitting children has serious political consequences, although these consequences are rarely recognized.

At the dawn of the new millennium, probably no one will claim that we should maltreat or humiliate our children. But almost everybody still seems to recommend spanking as an effective and harmless means of raising them.

The widely represented idea that you can "teach children the difference between right and wrong" by spanking them is as old as our culture but is nevertheless highly misleading, as new research proves. Hitting children is always a humiliation and a practice of slavery. It is also educationally ineffective because it induces fear - and nobody can learn an appropriate behavior in a state of fear.

However, children learn from examples. Thus, when we spank them, we teach them exactly what we don't want to teach: we teach them violence, ignorance, and hypocrisy. They learn quickly to do the same as we once did: first to submit to the more powerful person, to obey out of fear, and to hide the pain of being humiliated. Then, about 20 years later, they cover their own weakness with violence, are unable to act peacefully, and maintain that smacking children is the right thing to do. They resist all logical arguments by calling them "coddling", and go on to spank their own children (or to hurt themselves) without a second's thought, and without the slightest remorse. Their effort not to feel the suffering of their own childhood hinders them from recognizing that spanking children in every age is a humiliation - unless a new law that would clearly forbid parents to spank their children in any way will open their eyes.

If you ask grownup people why they were spanked in their childhood they will say something like: "I was a naughty boy or girl and drove my parents crazy, they were really overloaded by the way I was". These people may rarely recall any concrete incidents or constructive lessons because they were too scared to learn them. But now, against any logical way of thinking, they expect to teach their three-year-olds lessons by hitting them. Unfortunately, many politicians of the most powerful countries succumb to this error. They do reject slavery in theory but they still do not realize that children must absolutely be protected by law.

Our parents and grandparents are not to blame for having passed on to us misleading messages because, at that time, they had no better information at their disposal. But we do have them today. We can't claim the same innocence when the next generation blames us for having rejected information that was available to us and was easy to understand. Parents of today can no longer claim the unlimited freedom to be ignorant nor can a responsible government do it. It must take into account the most recent scientific discoveries. Damages in the brain structure of beaten children can already be seen on the screens of computers. Violence to children produces a violent and ill society. True authority dismisses humiliation. Its discipline is based on listening and talking, on trust, respect and protection of the weaker. It gives children the assistance they need to become responsible adults who will not turn to vengeful actions like wars and dictatorships, because they will simply return to others what they once received and what they learned by example: protection and respect.

Alice Miller, Virago Press, London

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Letter to Leonardo DiCaprio


Dear Leo,

I read online that your relationship with your last girlfriend ended and triggered much pain in you, and to manage this pain you went out to a nightclub and left with 20 women!!! These women, like taking medication, might help you repress your pain all over again and feel better temporally and superficially, but they will not resolve your repression. And sooner or later, the compulsion to reenact this painful scenario will continue.

When I was your age, I was in exactly the same place you are. And coincidentally, the man who triggered my repressed pain looked just like you!!! 

I am sending you a copy of my book, A Dance to Freedom: Your Guide to Liberation from Lies and Illusions, where I show how I resolved my repression and liberated myself.

I know you are passionate about saving the environment. The best way to save the environment is for more people to resolve their own repression, because people who are free of repression will not abuse themselves and others and will naturally protect the environment.

Wishing you courage and strength to resolve your repression,

Sylvie Imelda Shene

Sunday, December 7, 2014

Having Special Talents Doesn't Make you a Better Person

Having special talents is wonderful and it’s okay to cash in your talents for a living, but when people hide behind their talents, fame and money to hide their own personal truth and keep themselves and others distracted from the truth and facts then you are misusing your talents and contributing for the lies to spread and silently or covertly you are part of all the violence and atrocities we are witnessing in our world. So if people think they are better than others, because they have special talents, they are being delusional.
Bill Cosby is a great example of that!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/11/24/as-a-cosby-fixer-comes-out-of-the-shadows-so-does-an-explanation/


These words Alice Miller wrote to one of her readers came to mind: "I was distressed to the core when I read your letter for which I thank you wholeheartedly. At the same time, I felt a sort of gratefulness for the fate that helped the lively, brave and bright little girl not only to survive the terrible jail of her horrific parents but also to remain sound to keep the full clarity and the unusual courage in order TO SEE and TO ACCUSE, without „buts,“ without illusions, without self-betrayal. This stance can only very rarely be encountered, and your letter will certainly help others to recognize their own situation and to forgo the „buts.“ If you have no objections, we can publish your letter also in English and French. I would like to do this because here, the child has the strength to also speak for countless other children who are forced to bear the more or less visible delusions of their parents for years and to experience that as NORMAL. Formed by this ignorance, they often remain blind for the suffering of children during their whole lives and still recommend physical punishment. They work for senseless „research,“ for the pharmaceutical industry, organize wars, produce cruel movies and don’t know at all that they still „live“ in the prison of their sick parents because they never had the courage to see through their parents’ delusions and thus continue to poison the world with the toxin that they had to swallow as children."


"It is a great mistake to imagine that one can resolve traumas in a symbolic fashion. If that were possible, poets, painters, and other artists would be able to resolve their pain through creativity. This is not the case, however. Creativity helps us channel the pain of trauma into symbolic acts; it doesn't help us resolve it. If symbolic revenge for maltreatment received in childhood were effective, then dictators would eventually stop humiliating and torturing their fellow human beings. As long as they choose to deceive themselves about who really deserves their hatred, however, and as long as they go on feeding that hatred in symbolic form instead of experiencing and resolving it within the context of their own childhood, their hunger for revenge will remain insatiable (see Miller 1990a).” read more here