twelve points
excerpt from the drama of the gifted child by alice miller
For some years now, there has been proof that the devastating effects
of the traumatization of children take their inevitable toll on society
– a fact that we are still forbidden to recognize. This knowledge
concerns every single one of us and – if disseminated widely enough –
should lead to fundamental changes in society; above all, to a halt in
the blind escalation of violence. The following points are intended to
amplify my meaning:
- All children are born to grow, to develop, to live, to love, and to
articulate their needs and feelings for their self-protection.
- For their development, children need the respect and protection of
adults who take them seriously, love them, and honestly help them to
become oriented in the world.
- When these vital needs are frustrated and children are, instead,
abused for the sake of adults’ needs by being exploited, beaten,
punished, taken advantage of, manipulated, neglected, or deceived
without the intervention of any witness, then their integrity will be
lastingly impaired.
- The normal reactions to such injury should be anger and pain. Since
children in this hurtful kind of environment are forbidden to express
their anger, however, and since it would be unbearable to experience
their pain all alone, they are compelled to suppress their feelings,
repress all memory of the trauma, and idealize those guilty of the
abuse. Later they will have no memory of what was done to them.
- Disassociated from the original cause, their feelings of anger,
helplessness, despair, longing, anxiety, and pain will find expression
in destructive acts against others (criminal behavior, mass murder) or
against themselves (drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitution, psychic
disorders, suicide).
- If these people become parents, they will then often direct acts of
revenge for their mistreatment in childhood against their own children,
whom they use as scapegoats. Child abuse is still sanctioned – indeed,
held in high regard – in our society as long as it is defined as
child-rearing. It is a tragic fact that parents beat their children in
order to escape the emotions stemming from how they were treated by
their own parents.
- If mistreated children are not to become criminals or mentally ill,
it is essential that at least once in their life they come in contact
with a person who knows without any doubt that the environment, not the
helpless, battered child, is at fault. In this regard, knowledge or
ignorance on the part of society can be instrumental in either saving or
destroying a life. Here lies the great opportunity for relatives,
social workers, therapists, teachers, doctors, psychiatrists, officials,
and nurses to support the child and to believe her or him.
- Till now, society has protected the adult and blamed the victim. It
has been abetted in its blindness by theories, still in keeping with the
pedagogical principles of our great-grandparents, according to which
children are viewed as crafty creatures, dominated by wicked drives, who
invent stories and attack their innocent parents or desire them
sexually. In reality, children tend to blame themselves for their
parents’ cruelty and to absolve the parents, whom they invariably love,
of all responsibility.
- For some years now, it has been possible to prove, through new
therapeutic methods, that repressed traumatic experiences of childhood
are stored up in the body and, though unconscious, exert an influence
even in adulthood. In addition, electronic testing of the fetus has
revealed a fact previously unknown to most adults-that a child responds
to and learns both tenderness and cruelty from the very beginning.
- In the light of this new knowledge, even the most absurd behavior
reveals its formerly hidden logic once the traumatic experiences of
childhood need no longer remain shrouded in darkness.
- Our sensitization to the cruelty with which children are treated,
until now commonly denied, and to the consequences of such treatment
will as a matter of course bring to an end the perpetuation of violence
from generation to generation.
- People whose integrity has not been damaged in childhood, who were
protected, respected, and treated with honesty by their parents, will be
– both in their youth and in adulthood – intelligent, responsive,
empathic, and highly sensitive. They will take pleasure in life and will
not feel any need to kill or even hurt others or themselves. They will
use their power to defend themselves, not to attack others. They will
not be able to do otherwise than respect and protect those weaker than
themselves, including their children, because this is what they have
learned from their own experience, and because it is this knowledge (and
not the experience of cruelty) that has been stored up inside them from
the beginning. It will be inconceivable to such people that earlier
generations had to build up a gigantic war industry in order to feel
comfortable and safe in this world. Since it will not be their
unconscious drive in life to ward off intimidation experienced at a very
early age, they will be able to deal with attempts at intimidation in
their adult life more rationally and more creatively.
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