Afghanistan

America went to Afghanistan, selling the illusion of freedom, but after 20 years, when maintaining the illusion of freedom got too costly, America decided to cut its losses – and abandoned Afghanistan.

America went to Afghanistan to remove the ruthless regime of the Taliban, and now the Taliban has grown into a bigger monster and will be a more ruthless regime.

So what Americans accomplished in 20 years was to replace the Taliban regime with a more ruthless Taliban regime, and now the whole world will be less safe and worse off.

I’m very sad for all the innocent beings living there that will have to pay the high price for America’s illusion of freedom.

When we mistake an illusion for the real thing, when it bursts, it can destroy us. 

If I had mistaken the illusion of love given to me at my job of nine and a half years for real love, I would not have survived when their illusion of love ended overnight after I published my book A Dance to Freedom, sharing my life experiences and psychological discoveries. 

The whole country of Afghanistan is going through a similar experience I went through at my job of nine and a half years! 

The people in Afghanistan who didn’t buy into the illusion of freedom might survive, but those who bought into the illusion of freedom sold by the Americans might not survive now.

Just like I wrote in my book on page 123, “I believe that most illusions are dangerous and will destroy us eventually. We can have fun with some illusions for a while if we recognize them for what they are, but we get deeply hurt when we mistake an illusion for the real thing.”

 

Authoritarianism in Training: Donald Trump and the Childhood Roots of Anger

 "The Editors: Can you explain the relationship between physical discipline in childhood and support for punitive political initiatives in adulthood?

The Authors: In our research, we have found that the higher the frequency of spanking a person received in childhood, sometimes referred to as “sub-clinical trauma,” the greater the authoritarianism in adulthood, and the greater their support for punitive public policies like the death penalty and the use of military force. We call this “affect displacement theory,” whereby emotion from one source, in this case, childhood, can be carried into adulthood and displaced onto adult political attitudes.

It is important to note that experiencing childhood abuse is not solely ‘yes’ or ‘no’: There are gradations of abuse. Was physical punishment used a lot or a little? It is also important to note that voting is a blunt instrument, reflecting a decision-making process that integrates multiple factors. And there are, of course, multiple influences on public opinion, including a person’s education and gender and economic position, their parents’ attitudes, their friends’ attitudes, and the mass media. Many who voted for Trump did so, we believe, because they anticipated financial benefits and were willing to ignore his racism and sexism. Racism and sexism are often core elements of a person’s authoritarianism, as it puts other people below them.

On a related note, several studies have found authoritarianism to be associated with beliefs in rape myths and hostile attitudes toward women. It’s not surprising that Trump has tremendously negative attitudes toward women — the “pussy-grabbing” that he bragged about in the Access Hollywood tape is one good example of the link between authoritarianism and sexual aggression." Read more HERE

humans are destroying the planet

Because the more sharp people's intellect is the more they use it to escape from facing and feeling the painful truths in their  lives. We need people with courage to open their eyes to see and feel. 

It’s sad to witness everyday people using their sharp intellect to run from looking at the facts and see fundamental psychological mechanisms. 

It takes courage to see fundamental psychological mechanisms, intelligence alone is not enough -- it rather helps create elaborated  rationalizations, seductive lies and illusions.

Social Violence

 "That all social violence--whether by war, revolution or economic exploitation--is ultimately a consequence of child abuse should not surprise us. The propensity to reinflict childhood trauma upon others as an adult in socially-approved violence is actually far more able to explain and predict the actual outbreak of wars than the usual economic motivations, and we are likely to continue to undergo our periodic sacrificial rituals of war if the infliction of childhood trauma continues. The human race is now quite able technologically to satisfy its needs if we can live together without violence toward each other. But unless we employ our social resources toward consciously assisting the evolution of child-rearing, we will be doomed to the periodic destruction of our resources, both material and human. To Selma Freiberg's dicta that "Trauma demands repetition" I would only add "repetition through social action." We cannot be content to only continue to do endless repair work on damaged adults, with our therapies and jails and political movements. Our task now must, in addition, be to create an entirely new profession of "child helpers" whose can reach out to every new child born on earth and help its parents give it love and independence." -- Lloyd deMause www.psychohistory.com

above excerpt from The History of Child Abuse

by Lloyd deMause www.primal-page.com/ph-abuse.htm

Psychohistory Articles Menu www.primal-page.com/psyhis.htm#menu

The Primal Psychotherapy Page www.primal-page.com

“Banished Knowledge: Facing Childhood Injuries” by Alice Miller, she says: “As a rule, children who were once injured will later injure their own children,  maintaining that their behavior does no harm because their own loving parents did the same.

Historians and psychologists will long continue to ponder the reasons for this outlandish behavior because in their deliberations they overlook the only correct explanation. But in the long run, this explanation cannot be avoided, and it becomes obvious the moment the question is asked: What eventually happens to the person who was mutilated as a child? When a small child is tortured by ignorant adults, won't he have to take his revenge later in life? He is bound to avenge himself unless his subsequent life allows the old wounds to heal in love, which is seldom the case. As a rule, children who were once injured will later injure their own children, maintaining that their behavior does no harm because their own loving parents did the same. Besides, in the case of circumcision it is a religious demand, and to many people, it is still unthinkable that religion could demand cruelty. But what if the unthinkable is true? Are the children and children's children to be sacrificed because of the ignorance of the priests? It took three thousand years for the church to accept Galileo's proofs and admit its error. Today it is not a matter of theoretical astronomical proofs but of the practical consequences deriving from an insight that could save humanity from self-destruction, because it has already been proven that all destructive behavior has its roots in the repressed traumas of childhood. As soon as legislators become serious about the rights of the child to protection and respect as proclaimed by UNESCO, the fact will have to be acknowledged that ritual circumcisions

1.offer no advantage and are a mutilation;

2.prevent the relaxation experience and lead to over-stimulation with potentially destructive and self-destructive effects;

3.inflict a trauma on the child leading to an injury of his whole being, with the consequences of these injuries affecting not only the individual and his descendants but other human beings as well.”

Also in her book “Breaking Down the Wall of Silence: The Liberating Experience of Facing Painful Truth” Alice Miller speaks of the custom in some countries of female circumcision that also shows the same mechanisms perpetuating male circumcision: “Their consciousness, however, has not registered the realities of their situation. By repressing not only the pain but also their anger and desire for revenge, they have managed to banish consciousness, even idealizing the custom. Today, as a result of their repression, they can justify the procedure as harmless and necessary. They cannot recall their repressed anger and have never grieved about what happened to them. Consequently, they inflict the same ordeal on their children without wishing to acknowledge what they're doing to them.”

Also words below from an interview Alice Miller gave in November 1992 are very poignant. 

"I was told that there are cultures in which children are not mistreated and in which, significantly, "no wars are fought. "

"But I don't know them well. If you hear of such a society, I would be indebted to you for more detailed information about it."

"Philip Greven has shown how widespread sadistic and destructive methods of child-rearing still are, particularly those concealed under the mantle of religiosity. This is not only true of Christian child-rearing. 100 million Islamic women living today have had their genitals mutilated as children. Millions of Jewish or Arab children are, for the sake of dogma, subjected to circumcision, as infants or at an advanced age. Such cruelty is only possible with the total denial of the child's sensibility."

" In fact, I know of no religion that forbids and condemns the mistreatment of children as a matter of practice. Respect, understanding, and love are universally preached to parents, no matter how they behave. Children, on the other hand, according to Luther, for instance, should only be loved in so far as they are obedient and god-fearing : that is, as long as they deny themselves. Parents have a right to the unconditional love and respect of their children."

https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2012/08/question-about-circumcision.html

How a Person's Character is Developed

 "We do not arrive in this world as a clean slate. Every new baby comes with a history of its own, the history of the nine months between conception and birth. In addition, children have the genetic blueprint they inherit from their parents. These factors may help determine what kind of a temperament a child will have, what inclinations, gifts, and predispositions.

But character depends crucially upon whether a person is given love, protection, tenderness, and understanding or exposed to rejection, coldness, indifference, and cruelty in the early formative years. The stimulus indispensable for developing the capacity for empathy, say, is the experience of loving care. In the absence of such care, when a child is forced to grow up neglected, emotionally starved, and subjected to physical abuse, he or she will forfeit this innate capacity. While I ascribe immense significance to the experiences of infants in the first days, weeks, and months of their lives to explain their later behavior, I do not wish to assert that later influences are completely ineffectual. Rather, if a traumatized or neglected child can later come to know what I call an "enlightened" or "knowing witness," he or she can deal positively with the effects of that childhood trauma.

We know today that the brain we are born with is not the finished product it was once thought to be. The structuring of the brain depends very much on the experiences of the first hours, days, and weeks of a person's life. In the last few years, scientific studies led by neurologist and child psychiatrist Dr. Bruce D. Perry (www.childtrauma.org/) have further established that traumatized and neglected children display severe lesions affecting up to 30 percent of those areas of the brain that control our emotions. Severe traumas inflicted on infants lead to an increase in the release of stress hormones that destroy the existing, newly formed neurons and their interconnections." -- Alice Miller

Facebook Memory

 

The Silence by those Sitting on the Sidelines is the Real Killer

I thought I would share in a new blog the Facebook post comments that triggered the sharing of J. H.'s emails full of poison.

ST: Okay. As one who has lived outside the US quite a while, and who's not nowhere anywhere even close to being "of" the Christian right, I'd say any book - whether it's "nuanced" or not - whose title advertises that the author (in this case a Presbyterian minister) is good with calling an entire segment of the US population "fascists" is certain to be a complete load of crap.

Actually, anyone who calls any living person a "fascist" loses all credibility with me the instant I hear the word come out of their mouth. They might as well say evolution is "just a theory" or that the Earth is flat.

Sylvie: 

S T,

 you might be right. But I know and lived with a few authoritarian figures in my childhood. Call them authoritarians, dictators, fascists, or whatever you like. I have not read the book! Just the reviews, and I liked this review! But I didn't know the author proclaims to be a minister. I don't usually listen to or read books of miniseries because they typically are full of BS.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism?fbclid=IwAR1l0aiceeiKKnhbTExMMqdVfZ6fCBN-IjjMk2YB4Sn7BUzNINF_VhfW4RE#:~:text=Fascism%20 

S T,

 It was Hedges' father who was a minister.

S T: Sylvie Imelda Shene

 Okay, I'll take your word for it. My bad. In any case, calling anybody a "fascist" is stupid, irresponsible, and so far as I'm concerned, manipulative. Historians and political scientists specializing in fascism have argued since Mussolini about what fascism actually "is". The best of them consider it the "vaguest of all contemporary political terms" and its use among lay people to be purely ignorant invective.

Tiresome and easy to criticize as the Christian right may be, it's likely that there is no more genuinely antifascist group of people anywhere. Again, I admit this comes just from the use of "Fascists" in the title, but it sounds like the book could very well just be a distraction from what's really going on, even a projection.

It seems obvious that he's *not* examining his own prejudices or questioning the absolute totalitarianism that's part and parcel of Wokism/Critical Social Justice Theory. It sounds suspiciously more like he's written a preaching-to-the-choir book in which he rallies those of his own tribe to "Look how bad and awful those people over there are!"

Tiresome and easy to criticize as the Christian right may be, it's likely that there is no more genuinely antifascist group of people anywhere. Again, I admit this comes just from the use of "Fascists" in the title, but it sounds like the book could very well just be a distraction from what's really going on, even a projection.

It seems obvious that he's *not* examining his own prejudices or questioning the absolute totalitarianism that's part and parcel of Wokism/Critical Social Justice Theory. It sounds suspiciously more like he's written a preaching-to-the-choir book in which he rallies those of his own tribe to "Look how bad and awful those people over there are!"

Sylvie: S T, you make a lot of valid points... I myself used not to like to put labels on people... and I just started calling some people malignant narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths, after a group of evil people at my job of nine and a half years went out of their way to try to destroy me after I published my book. 

Most people will never know what it's like having a mob of evil people trying to destroy you! If you survive something like that! You will never look at another human being in the same way. Thanks to that experience I know without a doubt many people act as if personality pretending to be good people but are wolves in sheep's clothing, they are pure evil, doing their evil acts behind closed doors, call these people assholes, malignant narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths, or whatever you like! People who consciously go out of their way to hurt others are pure evil because they consciously know exactly what they are doing! And unfortunately, there are too many like that in our society, and I think humanity at large has become corrupted everywhere.

S T: It's horrible what happened to you. I've spent an hour trying to think of a better way of putting that, but the truth is, I stink at support. I really think you should hear something like that, and probably more than a few times, but that's the best I've got.

No question people can suck. I can agree with your assessment of people except that I agree even more with Solzhenitsyn's observation that nobody is "purely" one way or the other. And that actually makes life more complicated. Hope you're not taking that that I'm suggesting you 'forgive' anybody because that's not what I mean, and it's none of my business anyway.

As far as I'm concerned, Miller put her finger right on the button in For Your Own Good in accounting for the rise of Nazism before WWII. In the US, next to the children of black parents, the children of evangelical Christians are raised with the most similar mindset to what existed in Germany back then.

The Christian right is famous for its belief in the "necessity" of corporal punishment. The treatment of Nathan Phelps by his father, Fred, founder of Westboro Baptist, is as similar to the way Adolf was treated by Alois as any I can think of. Nathan managed to reject everything and escape, btw. The point is, there's an obvious parallel.

Still, imagining that that huge swath of the US is "fascist" is like thinking all Germans during WWII were Nazis. Actually, calling a group of people "fascist" like he did is, I think, more analogous to WWII Nazis calling Jews "vermin" or whatever else it was they said about them. The Left would call it "othering".

Barbara Ehrenreich does a good job of tracing the political ascent of the religious right in "Bright-sided" (which I've read and can recommend). It's possible Sean Faircloth does the same with "Attack of the Theocrats", though that's one I've skipped.

All I can say is that while individual acts can be considered pure evil, it gets difficult trying to extend that to any given person 100% of the time. The same goes for groups and the same's true in reverse. Nobody and no group is purely good.

For me, these days it feels like "guns to the left of me, guns to the right". And though both sides threaten, the religious right clearly lacks more teeth and is definitely more easily reasoned with than is the Critical Social Justice Theory-inspired Left.

Sylvie: S T, the bottom line is that most of humanity is corrupted or repressed to a degree, and it's the level of corruption or repression that makes some people very dangerous. You were one of the few people who said something when I was being targeted by a mob of corrupted or dangerously repressed people, and it's very much appreciated. 

Actually, what has been most disappointing was not the actions of the dangerously repressed people, but the silence of many waiting on the sidelines to see if I would crash and burn, because many would have been able to make a name for themselves by standing on my head. 

There is a lot of BS in this world, but very little of humanity, if any at all! I have learned that most people act as if personality, pretending to be good people, and that everything good they might do is done for image and to manipulate others' perception, but don't give a shit about anyone else but themselves, and protect their own image. Alice Miller is the only person I know who was authentic and went out of her way to really help humanity, and I will forever be grateful to her because it saved my life. Now I can enjoy the rest of my life in freedom. People's silence is the most disappointing. Also, explain to me why the whole country of Portugal protects and enables the sex crimes of the prestigious psychiatric doctor Julio Machado Vaz, because abuse is systemic in our society... the silence is the real killer!

https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-silence-from-media-is-deafening.html?

S T: I don't know. I'll take your word for it that I sent you an encouraging word back then, but I sure don't remember doing it. Makes my day if it's true though. Normally, I don't do "thoughts and prayers". At least not Facebook thoughts and prayers. And like I said, I pretty well stink at 'support'. It was pretty clear you were going through a nightmare, though. Proves the right (just as a good guess) can be as nasty as the left when it comes to canceling people it disapproves of.

Nobody has a right to harass somebody for writing a book, though. They were wrong.

Sylvie: Yes, they were wrong. Nobody should be harassed for writing a book sharing their life experiences and psychological discoveries.

I’m not very good at giving support to others, too, maybe, because I never got much support from others and have been on my own all of my life.

Before the nightmare, I went through with the repressed people at my job after I published my book, even though it was tough, but it was more expected and understanding! When working on my book with my co-writer, I mentioned many times to him that some of the “nice people” from my work that he met at my 53rd birthday party in 2012, the “nice people’s” own repression might be triggered and become very vicious towards me, and I might even lose my job. 

But my co-writer didn’t want to believe me! That’s the story of my life, no one ever believes me! But eventually, the truth comes to the surface! But I did question myself, and I thought maybe they would keep acting as if personality and go on with their façade. Still, I learned that once a sociopath, asshole, or whatever you like to call them, knows that you can see through their façade, they want you gone, and that’s when they will gather all the forces at their command to destroy you! 

And that’s exactly what happened! Once they read my book, they knew I knew I was a seeing-and-feeling person! But when they come after me, they end up exposing themselves! Some of the people were professors, doctors, and one was a retired FBI or CIA agent, so they had a lot of training in psychological warfare and probably didn’t believe me, like most people in my life that I had faced and resolved my childhood repression, and were confident that they could manipulate my emotions to get me to self-destruct! Underestimating me was their big mistake! 

And they proved my co-writer wrong and proved that my perceptions have been right all along! He even talked me into running an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds to help cover the book's publishing costs. I didn’t want to run a campaign to raise funds! I wanted to publish it when I had raised all the money myself, but he insisted that I should let people help me sometimes! I know people, and I learned very early in life that I can’t count on anyone but myself to do what really matters to me! I don’t regret many things in my life, but I do regret letting my co-writer talk me into running the campaign. I know most people love to support superficial things and give stuff that we don’t really need, but when there is something that really matters, most people will shy away, and it’s hard to find support for.

Anyway, before the nightmare at my job of nine and a half years, I went through a few nightmares that I’m still pretty silent about, with a few people I reached out to try to get their feedback for my book, and maybe write the foreword or a little review. I thought they were real because they were close to Alice Miller. They proclaimed to understand her books; some of these people are very well known and respected, but I got to see their real persona and how repressed they still are, and I got a dose of their poison! 

So this was even more of a disappointment because these people were supposed to be more understanding and self-aware. 

They have a lot of people fooled by using their sharp intellect, with a lot of memorized good knowledge they learned from others, like Alice Miller, saying and writing the right things. Sadly, they use their memorized Intellectual knowledge to manipulate people’s minds, gain power over them, and make a name for themselves by stepping on others' heads. 

I’m so glad I wrote and published my book because it showed me that most people are much worse than I'd always suspected. What the public is allowed to see and what goes on behind the scenes are totally different stories!

I might publish on my blog anonymously by just using initials all the emails exchanged with these people! The words below Alice Miller wrote to me come truer every day: “I have learned over the years of my work on the internet that there are readers who SEEM to understand SOME of what I have written, at least intellectually, but they are still so afraid of their very cruel parents and of their repressed FEELINGS of rage towards them that they are constantly looking for scapegoats.

They thus live in a continual confusion, pretending that they are healed and even offering help and empathy to others. But eventually, they unconsciously use other people (even the ones who are quite friendly to them) as a poisonous container, like their parents did to them, and if the offended people begin to defend themselves, they can become very mean.

I can only urge you to trust your feelings and NOT offer your empathy and interest to everybody just because they say they read and understood everything I have written. In most the cases it is a lie. To understand my books means to overcome the fear of one’s parents, to honestly feel the justified rage TOWARD THEM and to no longer use others to get free from the accumulated rage.”

In 2018, I published the e-mails exchanged with this self-proclaimed psychologist out of the Netherlands only because she waited 4 years to publish her flawed critique of my book, full of her own projections, and even went to the trouble of changing her name so I would not know who she was trying to mess with my mind!

Like I wrote to one of her followers that came to her defense: If your idolized Lilianne/Olane is such a compassionate person that cares so much about others --- how come she didn’t reach out to me with a kind word of support when I was being targeted by a mob of sociopaths at my job of nine and half years after I published my book in 2014?

I know she is following my blog incognito and witnessed everything that was taking place.

She didn’t care because she is a malignant narcissist or a sociopath like them. She was witnessing an attempt at a psychological lynching. She said nothing and most likely hoped they would succeed in destroying me for her sadistic enjoyment and put her own fears of exposure to rest.

She sat on her critique for four years, then published it after changing her name! She never predicted that I would figure out that Olane Roos and Liliane Rombout are one and the same! If this is not a calculated move of a malignant narcissist to try to discredit someone’s work -- then I don’t know what a calculated malignant narcissist is?

https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2018/04/most-therapists-keep-themselves-others.html?

ST: Quite a road you've been on, definitely.

Again, my interest has always just been in trying to understand what drives people to treat kids badly. I'd hoped to figure out what there might be to do about it. Too much crap had shown up in the local paper years back.

That got me looking into child abuse, and anybody doing that will run into Miller sooner or later.

What I never did become interested in was trying to understand 'fixing' people who'd been damaged. At least not beyond my acceptance of the importance of 'witnessing'. ('Witnessing' isn't really a term I like or am comfortable with, and it makes me even queasier to add 'enlightened' to it, especially in my case.) But what I mean is just I accept it's important to say something on behalf of a kid if ever you see abuse going on. Later is okay, but I mean especially right in the moment.

Not to defend anybody who's stayed 'silent' with regard to your own situation, but speaking up is often not easy. Especially face-to-face when actual poop is hitting the fan. At least it is for me. I can't claim to be good at it.

But beyond all that, all the years-after-the-fact, post-trauma stuff was never my interest. It's so beyond me that it just feels like hocus pocus . So I leave it alone.

What I think I'm happy to agree with you about is that Miller seemed definitely to have managed to attract quite a flock of very special birds to her. All of whom, far as I could tell, were heavy into the healing part of things. I wish them the best, and that's about all I can do.

Sorry to go on here, but I'd like to explain myself as best I can. I hope this isn't something I've already said one time or another:

I think Miller is to 'social ills' (something that covers so much that I don't like the idea of trying to fit it all into one sentence) what Ignaz Semmelweis was to puerperal ('childbed') fever.

He noticed an unmistakable correlation between doctors washing their hands after doing things like performing autopsies on diseased corpses, and pregnant women not dying, then, after getting obstetric exams from them.

Everybody thought he was crazy. It took more than half a century and Lister, Pasteur, and about six other guys, before doctors finally accepted that hand washing might really be a good idea. Semmelweis had "only" shown a correlation, which is how it's explained now, not proof. Pasteur didn't come up with the beginnings of germ theory for about another ten years. People in Semmelweis's time still attributed disease to "bad air" or whatever.

My feeling is that we're in a period comparable to that 50-60 year stretch between Semmelweis and acceptance. But the point is that studying ways of treating puerperal fever once it's been contracted is *one* thing, and persuading people to wash their stupid hands before they start sticking them into other people's really sensitive places is something else completely.

No doubt both are important. Still, I'm very interested in the second thing and not at all interested in the first. It's beyond me anyhow, like I said. And as you point out, even the pros seem to really struggle with it.

Hope you had a nice holiday and have a good weekend. We're having turkey tomorrow because K worked yesterday

Sylvie: Hi ST, I hope you had a nice holiday season, and you and everyone around you are staying safe and healthy.

Sorry, it took me so long to respond to your last comment. Now I only write while I’m at work because the little girl within me doesn’t want me to sit on the desk at home writing -- rather be playing -- doing things I like and hanging with my cats -- so if work is busy, I’m not writing at all! As I have shared many times before, I'm extremely dyslexic, and writing is one of the hardest things to do in life.

I have learned that nothing I can write, say, or do will do much to help humanity wake up from its deep repression, so from now on I will just write if I have time at work and feel like it!

I also worked on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas!

Also, the little girl within me doesn’t want me on social media anymore, so my presence there will be limited from now on, too! Like Alice Miller once wrote: “Of course, the Internet allows everybody to show themselves, their emotional insights as well as their emotional blindness,” and I have grown tired of the predominance of people's emotional blindness on social media!

Yes, it has been quite a road I have been on! And I’m very proud of my journey! I’m free at last!

And this is one of the reasons I was targeted by very repressed people because they got envious of me and they wanted to steal my freedom and remove my permanent smile from my face forever, but my smile is real! Not fake like theirs! What I have can't be bought with money, and I can’t be stolen! And this is why they were so envious that they gathered all the forces at their command, trying to destroy my life!

The only way for people to stop abusing children is to face and resolved their own repression, otherwise, they will be driven by the repressed emotions of the child they once were into the state of repetition compulsion sooner or later in one form or another to abuse others -- especially their own children – if a layperson like me -- can see this clearly -- and understand these psychological mechanisms -- then the real question should be why the talented, gifted, formal educated, and so much more intelligent can’t see and understand these psychological mechanisms?! Childhood repression affects everyone to a degree, layperson or not!

Education alone is nothing more than one more big illusion! The more talented, gifted, and sharp a person's intellect is, the more they master the art of compartmentalization and dissociation, and create elaborate rationalizations, lies, and illusions to help them run from facing and consciously feeling their own repression and painful truths. What people need most is courage! Intelligence alone is not enough!

ST: No apology needed, Sylvie. I did go through your post on the blog. Am I right in thinking that my using 'special birds' is what got you thinking about it? It doesn't matter, just wondered.

Read more in the link below:
https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-time-has-come-to-share-j-h-emails.html

Alice Miller http://alice-miller.com/ "Humiliations, spankings and beatings, slaps in the face, betrayal, sexual exploitation, derision, neglect, etc. are all forms of mistreatment, because they injure the integrity and dignity of a child, even if their consequences are not visible right away...

But thanks to facing our truth, we can transform ourselves from the children who still live in us, full of fear and denial, into responsible, well-informed adults who have regained their empathy, so early stolen from them. By becoming feeling persons, we can no longer deny that beating children is a criminal act that should be forbidden on the whole planet...

The prerequisite for true compassion for others is empathy with one’s own destiny, something a maltreated child can never develop because such a child cannot allow himself to feel his own pain. All criminals, including the cruelest of dictators, display this lack of empathy. They murder others (or have them murdered) without the slightest compunction. A child forced to suppress his own emotions will have no compassion for himself and consequently no compassion for others. This encourages criminal behavior that is frequently concealed behind moral, religious, or apparently progressive verbiage...

Giving the parents advice on how to teach their child to behave doesn't open the path to their (the parents') own history; it only gives them more power and leaves them often emotionally blind and thus still WITHOUT EMPATHY. For instance, the often-repeated advice to send the child away for a "time out" is one of the many examples of advice on how children should be maltreated when they are "nasty" because they are unhappy. Nobody would send a friend to a separate room when she cries without knowing yet the reason for her distress, but doing this with an unhappy child is often recommended by experts in child rearing."

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?

Will Ever Portugal Find the Courage to Investigate Dr. Julio Machado Vaz?

Bill O'Reilly wasn't fired because of what he did — he was fired because it got out

Outonecer: When a Predator Performs Wisdom in Autumn