Real happiness comes from within, from a strong sense of self, from growing as a human being, from being a decent person. So if your core self is rotten, if you are severely disconnected, if you are not growing, and if you are a hurtful person, it’s impossible to be genuinely happy. The best you can do is desperately manage your shaky and skewed false self.
This blog is about learning to understand all of our feelings and learning to consciously face, feel, and experience all of our feelings within the context of our own childhood. Everything we become and everything that happens to us is connected to childhood. Not every victim becomes an abuser, but every abuser was once a victim of abuse. These are facts. Violence is not genetic; it’s learned. https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2014/08/a-dance-to-freedom-book-reviews.html
Friday, December 29, 2017
The Narcissist Punishment is Living all of their Lives and Dying in an Emotional Prison.
Real happiness comes from within, from a strong sense of self, from growing as a human being, from being a decent person. So if your core self is rotten, if you are severely disconnected, if you are not growing, and if you are a hurtful person, it’s impossible to be genuinely happy. The best you can do is desperately manage your shaky and skewed false self.
Thursday, December 28, 2017
Abuse on the couch Silenced transgression
Below is a quote from the article translated with the help of Google Translate -- where the author mentions -- my experience with sexual abuse -- with the prestigious Portuguese psychiatrist and sexologist Júlio Machado Vaz:
"When the press reported the accusations against Dr. Criado, the Portuguese Sylvie Imelda Shene was reflected in what they were saying. In her book 'A Dance to Freedom', published in the United States in 2014, she claimed to have been the victim of sexual abuse by the renowned psychiatrist and sexologist Júlio Machado Vaz. In the 70s, Shene went to a young doctor, Machado, to help her overcome childhood trauma. "His methods made me worse," she says in her blog, where she also says that it took her 20 years to acknowledge that he had been the victim of sexual abuse. Referring to the case of Matilde Solís, Shene asks if "Portugal will also someday find the courage to investigate Machado Vaz".
Comments from the sharing of this post on my author's page on Facebook:
Ana Rego, 20 anos, para se dar conta de que tinha sido sexualmente abusada? Ou percebi mal?
Translation into English: 20 years to realize that she had been sexually abused? Or did I misunderstand?
Sylvie Imelda Shene, I posted the comment below with my personal page, Sylvie Imelda Shene, in response to Ana Rego's comment, but she or someone else marked my comment as spam. My comment is not spam. Whoever marked it as spam must belong to Dr. Julio Machado Vaz's cult and be trying to silence me.
"Are you questioning my experience? I feel your judgment and other people’s judgments are not of my concern.
But to answer your question: I always felt at the core of my being that what Dr. Julio Machado Vaz did to me was not right, and all these years I blamed myself for what took place because I could have run away or left as I have always done when something doesn’t feel right to me. But I went along with him, and all these years I blamed myself for not leaving.
He was very charming, and he manipulated me into thinking what we were doing was normal. It took me over 20 years to find an enlightened witness to side with me and help me see that it was not my fault -- and put the blame where it belongs- in #JulioMachadoVaz--- and say it out loud that what happened to me when I was a vulnerable, young 17-year-old -- was indeed sexual abuse!
He was in a position of power, posing as a" mental health care professional" who was supposed to help me, but instead created more confusion and took me over two decades to resolve and find freedom from this huge labyrinth he helped create.
In the book Boundaries: Where You End, And I Begin, Anne Katherine states, “A therapist is entrusted with his or her clients’ deepest secrets. A minister bestows sanctions from the highest power in the universe. The potential for harm is overwhelming. For a person in such a role, essentially that of a guardian, to cross sexual boundaries is a grave violation. A child, a client, a patient, a follower, or a worshiper are vulnerable and usually approaches authority out of need. A sexual action by a guardian is very confusing, even to a very strong and healthy individual. For someone vulnerable and in need, such an action can be devastating. When a parent is sexual toward a child, the violation reverberates for decades. Trust is broken, the child takes on responsibility for the act, sexuality is affected, and the bond is damaged. When a therapist, physician, attorney, or clergy person has a sexual relationship with a client or worshipper, it is also incest. A trust is broken, a bond is perverted. The person who sought care was used to meet the needs of the caregiver.”33
I included the quote above in my book and you are welcome to read, if you like, in the link below a small excerpt where I share more of my experience with Dr. Julio Machado Vaz."
Ana Rego, acabei de ver a sua resposta ao meu comentário pela primeira vez. Garanto-lhe que se alguma das suas respostas foi marcada como spam, a autora dessa acção não fui eu. Por outro lado, para além de partilhar com o Dr. Júlio Machado Vaz a nacionalidade, nada mais me liga ao dito senhor: nem a área de trabalho nem a cidade em que vivemos (penso que ele vive no Porto...) e nunca o conheci pessoalmente... Peço desculpa pelo meu espanto com o facto de alguém só se ter apercebido de que tinha sido vítima de assédio sexual... Consigo entender que a pessoa esteja vinte anos sem contar a ninguém tal facto. Em todo o caso, penso que o seu novo texto lança alguma luz sobre o que se passou.
E creia que a minha solidariedade vai toda para as mulheres molestadas e nunca para os agressores. Daí que tenha algum cuidado em entender as situações para distinguir as que são de facto agressões (ainda que encapotadas...) das que são apenas relacionamentos que correram mal...
Espero que encontre a sua paz e que o(s) culpado(s) do seu sofrimento tenha a penalização devida...
Translation: I just saw your response to my comment for the first time. I assure you that if any of your answers were marked as spam, it was not me. On the other hand, apart from sharing with Dr. Júlio Machado Vaz the nationality, nothing else connects me to the said person: neither the work area nor the city in which we live (I think he lives in Porto ...) and never I met him personally ... I apologize for my astonishment that someone only realized that I had been the victim of sexual harassment ... I can understand that the person is twenty years without telling anyone that fact. In any case, I think your new text throws some light on what has happened.
And believe that my solidarity goes all out to the molested women and never to the aggressors. So take care to understand the situations, distinguishing those that are, in fact, aggressions (even if hooded ...) from those that are just relationships that have gone wrong ...
I hope you find your peace and that the culprit (s) of your suffering have the due penalty
Sylvie Imelda Shene #MeToo #TIMESUP #OurVoicesOurTime Thank you, Ana Rego! I appreciate your support, and I’m glad my comment shed light. Another reason -- we victims of abuse -- don’t come forward sooner is because we are afraid we will not be believed and listened to. I have been trying to get someone to listen to my story since the year 2000. But I can’t get anyone to listen and pay attention -- like a reader of my book written in a review: “I read this book – nothing but respect and admiration for the author!! I can’t imagine why anyone would feel differently. It really is a compelling story --- and needs to be heard”.
I’m so sorry for assuming you were the one marking my comment as spam. It must have been a follower of #JulioMachadoVaz or he himself, because I know he comes to my pages and spies on me. One time, he clicked Like and Dislike on one of my posts by mistake, or to try to intimidate me into silence.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154895596343922&set=a.10150968905658922.437817.723458921&type=3&theater
Also, read about Dr. Johnnie Barto, a sexual predator pediatrician, gets up to 158 years in prison
Will More Women in Portugal Find the Courage to Report Dr. Julio Machado Vaz's Sexual Abuse?
Outonecer: When a Predator Performs Wisdom in Autumn
Thursday, December 21, 2017
Surprising Book Facts: Becoming Your Own Own enlightened Witness
Heleen Bos Do you think these statements are facts, Sylvie?
Sylvie Imelda Shene Not sure, Heleen. But from my experience with most people I know, these facts are pretty accurate.
Heleen Bos Thanks :-)
Sylvie Imelda Shene Heleen, also from my personal experience, I can testify that this statement in the picture is pretty accurate: "Reading one hour per day in your chosen field will make you an international expert in 7 years." I started reading every psychology book I could get my hands on in 1995, and by 2003, I had become an expert! My own enlightened witness or therapist!
Like I wrote in my book page 128 and 129, "Meanwhile, I was reading every self-help book I could get my hands on. You name it, I probably read it! And I was eating it all up, hoping that something would finally work for Marty and me.
... Marty wasn’t listening to anything I was saying, ...But I kept reading, and talking, and reading some more. I read every word in every book because I didn’t want to miss a single clue that could lead me to happiness. And that’s how I found Alice Miller. Way back in the bibliography of Melody Beattie’s Codependents’ Guide to the Twelve Steps, I found a reference to Alice Miller’s third book, Thou Shalt Not Be Aware: Society’s Betrayal of the Child. I knew I had to get it because of the subtitle alone, because I had grown up feeling betrayed by everyone in my life. And when I started reading the book, I immediately knew that I had found someone who understood me. Unfortunately, at the time, I was still under the influence of other techniques and treatments that promised a quick fix. The people in my 12-step group kept telling me that all I had to do to change Marty was to change myself, and I was seduced by the simplicity of it — even though I had already gone for years with no results! I’ve touched on this a lot in this chapter and elsewhere in this book, particularly in the section about #DrJulioMachadoVaz — the psychologist who used me for sex — but I really want to reinforce the idea that so-called therapists and gurus only substitute one dangerous illusion for another. As Alice Miller writes, “What can happen when a doctor doesn’t stop at self-deception in his flight from pain, but deceives his patients, even founding dogmatic institutions in which further ‘helpers’ are recruited to a faith advertised as scientific ‘truth,’ can be catastrophic.”64
The key to effective therapy is learning how to use your present triggers productively. They can help us clarify, understand, and consciously feel our intense emotions within the context of our own childhoods without losing our adult consciousness. A good therapist can help us regain our adult consciousness if we lose it and encourage our autonomy, so we can deal with present issues from an adult perspective. But when a therapist regresses us to the state of the desperate child we once were and keeps us feeling old pain over and over again, that just reinforces our dependency, keeps us vulnerable to all kinds of manipulations, and makes our addiction to pain harder to shake. Why do people keep punishing themselves?
As Alice Miller writes, “… the awareness was borne in upon me that in a state of regression it is not possible to judge the competence and integrity of the person one has turned to for such guidance. This opens up all kinds of opportunities for abuse. The intensive phase with which primal therapy begins is an immediate obstacle to the formation of a balanced, critical, independent assessment of the therapist’s abilities by the client. The fact that the attendant uncritical and irrational expectations of healing and ‘salvation’ can lead to the establishment of totalitarian sects is borne out by the crass example of mass abuse at the hands of the exponents of ‘feeling therapy’ as described in detail by Carol Lynn Mithers in her book Therapy Gone Mad: The True Story of Hundreds of Patients and a Generation Betrayed (1994). But this study was possible only after the community she describes had disbanded, something that frequently takes decades. Today we know that such groups exist and that members of sects are done irremediable harm before they become aware of the fact.”65 In another book, she goes on to say, “The thing that concerns me most about cult groups is the unconscious manipulations that I have described in detail in my work. It is the way in which the repressed and unreflected childhood biographies of parents and therapists influence the lives of children and patients entrusted to their care, without anyone involved actually realizing it. At first glance, it may seem as if what goes on in cults and cultlike therapy groups takes place on a different level from the unconscious manipulation of children by their parents. We assume that in the former instance, we are in the presence of an intentional, carefully planned, and organized form of manipulation aimed at exploiting the specific predicament of individuals.
… First, they had learned how to reduce people to the emotional state of the helpless child. Once they had achieved that, they also learned how to use unconscious regression to exercise total control over their victims. From then on, what they did seemed to come automatically, in accordance with the child-rearing patterns instilled into them in their own childhood.”66 Most people who search for answers never actually find them, because people suffering with their own repression are the ones who practice traditional therapies. Since the beginning of human history, priests, teachers, gurus, psychics, doctors, philosophers, and psychologists have all duped people into thinking they could provide real assistance when it was never possible because the healers were also victims of their own childhoods."
Heleen Bos Sylvie Imelda Shene, thank you for your careful response. I am sorry there was a therapist who did those horrible things to you when you were vulnerable! So happy that you've found Alice Miller's books and felt understood. I am also very thankful for knowing her work! Warm wishes, Heleen
Also, read about Dr. Johnnie Barto, a sexual predator pediatrician, gets up to 158 years in prison
Will More Women in Portugal Find the Courage to Report Dr. Julio Machado Vaz's Sexual Abuse?
Outonecer: When a Predator Performs Wisdom in Autumn
💛
🙂
Saturday, December 16, 2017
The psychology of narcissism:
I have a tendency to put them all in the category of sociopaths. I guess it's really not fair to call a narcissist a sociopath. This video states what's a narcissist is. A sociopath and a psychopath are much more dangerous!
Emotional Abuse and Sociopaths
1. Emotional manipulator
Playing on sympathy is a favorite weapon of choice for psychopaths.
While they are confident, outgoing and mentally resilient and rarely feel sorry for themselves, they are master manipulators are extremely proficient at eliciting pity and compassion.
Poor performers with psychopathic tendencies may frequently appeal to extenuating circumstances and pleas for support and understanding in order to shift the focus from their own behavior.
2. Control freak
3. Charming
4. Bloodsucker
5. Liar Liar
An Educated Empath Is a Sociopath’s Worst Nightmare
Thursday, December 14, 2017
There are Predators Everywhere
Tom Hanks Talks Sexual Harassment Allegations Plaguing The Entertainment Industry
I was the target of a mob of the worst kind of predators in a community where I worked for nine and half years! “The bad stuff can happen on a movie as well. There are some people who go into this business because they get off on having power,” he said. “And the times they feel the most powerful, which is why they went into the business, are when they are hitting on somebody who’s underneath them, [and] I don’t necessarily mean completely sexually. There are predators absolutely everywhere.” Read more HERE
Yes, the sociopaths at my job of nine and half years did all these things, after I published my book to try to make me go crazy to declare me mentally unstable and discredit my book, so they could go on with their facades, lies, and illusions as usual.
To read more about my experiences with the mob of sociopaths or narcissists at my last job read my blog Experienced Knowledge
Saturday, December 2, 2017
Review of Alice Miller's Books and Some Great Videos of Her Work
The author shares reviews of books that helped him with his own personal development.
I'm happy to read my book also gave him a lot of inspiration!






