Alice Miller Quotes about Pain

All Alice Miller Quotes Abuse Achievement Addiction Anger Childhood Children Empathy Feelings Giving Mourning Pain quotes Past Quality Self Esteem Soul Suffering Therapy Truth

The true opposite of depression is not gaiety or absence of pain, but vitality: the freedom to experience spontaneous feelings.

The true opposite of depression is not gaiety or absence of pain, but vitality: the freedom to experience spontaneous feelings.

Alice Miller

Depression, Pain, Opposites

Alice Miller (1981). “The drama of the gifted child”, Basic Books (AZ)

What is addiction, really? It is a sign, a signal, a symptom of distress. It is a language that tells us about a plight that must be understood.

Alice Miller

Pain, Recovery, Addiction

Alice Miller (2008). “Breaking Down the Wall of Silence: The Liberating Experience of Facing Painful Truth”, p.126, Basic Books

Every life and every childhood is filled with frustrations; we cannot imagine it otherwise, for even the best mother cannot satisfy all her child's wishes and needs. It is not the suffering caused by frustration, however, that leads to emotional illness, but rather the fact that the child is forbidden by the parents to experience and articulate this suffering, the pain felt at being wounded.

Alice Miller

Mother, Children, Pain

Alice Miller (2002). “For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence”, p.254, Farrar, Straus and Giroux