To read my original version of this blog with my raw English, click HERE
The Time Has Come to Share J. H.'s Emails Full of Poison
For years, I kept these emails to myself. I didn’t want to stir unnecessary drama, and I hoped that by letting them go, I could move on. But the deeper truth is that these exchanges are not just about one person or one interaction—they reflect a tragic pattern in the world of psychology: people who claim to be advocates for children, but who haven’t done the hard emotional work of facing their own childhood repression. And because of that, they project, manipulate, regress others, and repeat the very harm they claim to heal.
It’s time to break the silence.
1. My Journey and the Repeated Pattern
Ever since publishing A Dance to Freedom, I’ve had to face this reality: that besides Alice Miller, every person I’ve encountered in the mental health field has attempted, in one way or another, to manipulate my emotions, regress me to the child state, and coerce me into submission.
The first person I reached out to for a foreword for my book was J. H., someone who claimed to be aligned with Alice Miller’s work. I had admired her translations and thought she, of all people, might understand my journey.
What unfolded instead was a slow, suffocating reenactment.
2. A Simple Invitation Met with Accusation
I emailed J.H. with good news. I had finished my manuscript and wanted to invite her to write a foreword. I expressed gratitude for her past work and sent her a sample.
She responded immediately, not with enthusiasm or encouragement, but with an accusation: that my website had a mission statement that was too similar to hers.
She wrote:
“I want to say that I'm not happy having just gone to your website and discovering our mission statement presented almost verbatim. Please remove it.”
I responded with a genuine apology and immediately removed the statement. I had written those words years earlier, inspired by Alice Miller’s truth. Still, I told her clearly: I did not mean to step on her toes and would make sure to revise everything.
But that wasn’t enough.
3. The Demand for Guilt
J.H. kept insisting I had committed a kind of emotional theft. She accused me of reading her mission statement and copying it deliberately to hide behind it. She asked:
“How did you justify this to yourself?”
She wanted not just a correction, but a confession. She needed me to declare guilt—not because I had actually wronged her, but because she needed a scapegoat. Her tone grew colder, her words more demeaning, until finally she said she could not endorse my book because she would have to verify whether all of it was truly "my own."
4. The Shadow of Reenactment
By now, it was clear: J.H. wasn’t interested in clarity or truth. She was reenacting the wounds of her own childhood, projecting her unresolved shame onto me.
I wrote back:
“Just because of a few words on my website, it has given you a reason to make me the poison container of your repressed emotions. You showed me how you were treated as a child—made to feel guilt for minor infractions—and now you are doing the same to me.”
This pattern is not rare. It is the blueprint of most of society. And tragically, it is rampant in the mental health field.
5. Alice Miller Saw Me
When I quoted Alice Miller in public forums, some tried to accuse me of copyright abuse. They even wrote to her directly. But unlike J.H., Alice stood by me.
She responded:
“I opened [the link] and found a discussion led very respectfully by Sylvie Shene, who seems to understand much about the dangers of spanking... But I didn't find an example of anybody using my name for a text that I have NOT written.”
Alice saw my authenticity. She felt my emotional truth. She didn’t need to dominate me to protect her work—because she had done her own work.
This is the difference between someone who has faced their past and someone who merely preaches it.
6. A Reader's Response
At the time, I shared the emails privately with a trusted reader in Germany. This is what they wrote back:
“What seemed very strange to me was that you DID apologize in almost every mail, but she didn't hear it! What puzzles me even more is that she pretends you took her words. Honestly, if one tells the truth, why should we claim ownership of the words used to express that truth?”
“This is hypocrisy, as you said. What a pity.”
Indeed. And a painful pity at that.
7. What This Is Really About
This wasn’t about a mission statement. It was about control, ego, and emotional blindness. It was about someone who hadn’t faced their own pain, demanding I carry it for them. That’s why I call this: emails full of poison.
Most people in the mental health world are not free. They are parrots of other people’s insights. They have not confronted their parents, felt their justified rage, or stopped reenacting their childhoods. They read Alice Miller with their intellects but are terrified of what she demands with her heart.
Alice warned me:
“They live in continual confusion, pretending they are healed. But eventually, they use unconsciously other people… as a poison container like their parents did to them.”
That’s exactly what J.H. did. And it’s exactly what so many others continue to do.
8. Why I’m Publishing This Now
I am sharing this now because the world needs to see how deep the corruption goes. Even in circles that claim to advocate for children, the same cycles of repression and scapegoating are repeated.
Until this day, besides Alice Miller, I have not found another authentic person. This is why the mainstream mental health world never mentions Alice Miller. Because they know: if people read her books, their masks would fall. Their intellectualized personas would crumble.
This is why they pretend not to see me. They know I exist. They know A Dance to Freedom exists. But they are afraid.
They are afraid of the truth.
They are afraid of Alice Miller.
9. Related Post
If you haven't read it yet, my blog post "Who’s Afraid of Alice Miller and Why" expands on this theme and reveals even more about why Alice Miller's work continues to be ignored by the very people who should be championing it.
To those who have lived through similar betrayal:
You are not alone.
I see you. I believe you. And I stand by your side.
Let us keep writing, feeling, and refusing to carry anyone else's poison ever again.
With love and strength,
Sylvie
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