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Alice Miller Quotes - Page 4

All Quotes Abuse Achievement Addiction Anger Childhood Children Empathy Feelings Giving Mourning Pain Past Quality Self Esteem Soul Suffering Therapy Truth
People who, as children, were intellectually far beyond their parents and therefore admired by them, but who also therefore had to solve their own problems alone. These people, who give us a feeling of their

People who, as children, were intellectually far beyond their parents and therefore admired by them, but who also therefore had to solve their own problems alone. These people, who give us a feeling of their intellectual strength and will power, also seem to demand that we, too, ought to fight off any feeling of weakness with intellectual means. In their presence one feels one cannot be recognized as a person with problems just as they and their problems were unrecognized by their parents, for whom he always had to be strong.

Alice Miller
Strong, Children, Mean
Alice Miller (2008). “The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self, Third Edition”, p.58, Hachette UK

Discipline is ... life-inhibiting, is at the very least curtailment of vital activity insofar as the latter cannot develop as it wishes but is confined within specific limits and subjected to specific rules.

Alice Miller
Discipline, Wish, Limits
Alice Miller (2002). “For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence”, p.31, Macmillan

One of the best ways of keeping your temper in an argument, as most of us know only too well, is not to listen to anything the other person has to say.

Alice Miller
Anger, Way, Argument

It is unlikely that someone could proclaim "truths" that are counter to physical laws for very long (for example, that it is healthy for children to run around in bathing suits in winter and in fur coats in summer) without appearing ridiculous. But it is perfectly normal to speak of the necessity of striking and humiliating children and robbing them of their autonomy, at the same time using such high-sounding words as chastising, upbringing, and guiding onto the right path.

Alice Miller
Summer, Running, Children
Alice Miller (2002). “For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence”, p.16, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

There are people who have benefited from therapy without being confronted with the past at all.

Alice Miller
Past, People, Therapy

Regression to the stage of early infancy is not a suitable method in and of itself. Such a regression can only be effective if it happens in the natural course of therapy and if the client is able to maintain adult consciousness at the same time.

Alice Miller
Infancy Is, Adults, Able

You gotta keep that in check - you got to.

Alice Miller
Checks

Don't ever dare to take your college as a matter of course - because, like democracy and freedom, many people you'll never know have broken their hearts to get it for you.

Alice Miller
Graduation, Heart, College

Today I should not be identified with any kind of regressive therapy.

Alice Miller
Today, Comeback, Kind

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