Until the Full Truth of Facts can be seen Liberation is not Possible

“ A baby requires the certainty that he will be protected in every situation, that his arrival is desired, that his cries are heard, that the movements of his eyes are responded to and his fears calmed.

...The only possible recourse a baby has when his screams are ignored is to repress his distress, which is tantamount to mutilating his soul, for the result is an interference with his ability to feel, to be aware, and to remember.

...It is only in the child that trauma are bound to lead to psychic wounds because they damage the organism in its growth process. These injuries can heal if one dares to see them, or they can remain unhealed if one is forced to go on ignoring them. The feminist movement will forfeit none of its strength if it finally admits that mothers also abuse their children. Only the truth, even the most uncomfortable, endows a movement with the strength to change society, not the denial of the truth. When men abuse their women and the women put up with it, both the violence of the men and the tolerance of the women are consequences of early child abuse. Hence young children, male as well as female, can become victims of adults of either sex. When sensitive, nonbrutal women (and men) are incapable of protecting their children from the brutality of their partner, one must attribute this inability to the blinding process and the intimidation experienced in their own childhood. That is the simple truth. Only when these roots of all violence are exposed is it possible to examine the phenomena without retouching or embellishing them. When a female therapist has been taught that men are solely to blame for all evil in the world, she will, of course, be able to support her female patients when they eventually discover that they have been sexually abused by their fathers, grandfathers, or brothers: Unlike the followers of the drive theory, she will not talk them out of this truth. But as long the truth about the mother who allowed the abuse to happen, who failed to protect the child and ignored her distress, is kept out of sight, the full reality is not allowed to be either perceived or acknowledged. And as long as the child’s feelings cannot be experienced, the rage against men---a rage she can already experience---remain impotent: it can even remain coupled with the undissolved loyalty and devotion toward the father or other abusive men. When mothers are defended as pathetic victims, the female patient will not discover that with a loving, protective, perceptive, and courageous mother she could never have been abused by her father or brother. A daughter who has learned from her mother that she is worth protecting will find protection among strangers too and will be able to defend herself. When she has learned what love is, she will not succumb to simulated love. But a child who was merely pushed aside and disciplined, who never experienced soothing caresses, is not aware that anything like nonexploitive caresses can exist. She has no choice but to accept any closeness she is offered rather than be destroyed. Under certain circumstances she will even accept sexual abuse for the sake of finding at least some affection rather than freezing up entirely. When, as an adult woman, she comes to realize that she was cheated out of love, she may be ashamed of her former need and hence feel guilty. She will blame herself because she dare not blame her mother, who failed to satisfy the child’s need or perhaps even condemned it. Psychoanalysts protect the father and embroider the sexual abuse of the child with the Oedipus, or Electra, complex, while some feminist therapist idealize the mother, thus hindering access to the child’s first traumatic experience with the mother. Both approaches can lead to a dead end, since the dissolved of pain and fear is not possible until the full truth of facts can be seen and accepted.” Alice Miller  “Banished Knowledge” page 1, 2, 78 and 79