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Alice Miller Quotes

Psychologist

Alice Miller, born on January 12, 1923, and died on April 12, 2010, was a renowned psychologist. Her research focused on child psychology and the psychology of abuse, delving deeply into the psychological impact of child abuse and neglect.

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Famous Alice Miller Quotes

“The child has a primary need to be regarded and respected as the person he really is at any given time, and as the center - the central actor - in his own activity.”

Needs Children Persons Actors Given Activity Primaries

Book:Prisoners of Childhood

Source: Prisoners of Childhood

“Learning is a result of listening, which in turn leads to even better listening and attentiveness to the other person. In other words, to learn from the child, we must have empathy, and empathy grows as we learn.”

Children Persons Turns Grows Results Education Learning Listening Empathy Attentiveness Learned Person

Book:For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

Source: For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

“It is very difficult for people to believe the simple fact that every persecutor was once a victim. Yet it should be very obvious that someone who was allowed to feel free and strong from childhood does not have the need to humiliate another person.”

People Needs Feels Should Believe Persons Doe Facts Strong Difficult Simple Childhood Victim Obvious Humiliate

Book:For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

Source: For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

“The grandiose person is never really free; first because he is excessively dependent on admiration from others, and second, because his self-respect is dependent on qualities, functions, and achievements that can suddenly fail.”

Firsts Persons Self Quality Failing Achievement Function Self Respect Dependent Admiration Grandiose

Book:The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self

Source: The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self

“The art of not experiencing feelings. A child can experience her feelings only when there is somebody there who accepts her fully, understands her, and supports her. If that person is missing, if the child must risk losing the mother's love of her substitute in order to feel, then she will repress emotions.”

Ifs Feels Children Persons Art Feelings Mother Order Emotion Accepting Support Risk Missing Losing Substitutes Mother's Love

Book:The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self

Source: The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self

“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.”

Knows Way Wells Persons Argument Anger Best Way Temper

Author:Alice Miller

“Child abuse damages a person for life and that damage is in no way diminished by the ignorance of the perpetrator. It is only with the uncovering of the complete truth as it affects all those involved that a genuinely viable solution can be found to the dangers of child abuse.”

Way Children Persons Found Danger Ignorance Involved Solutions Abuse Damage Child Abuse Perpetrators Uncovering

Book:Banished Knowledge: Facing Childhood Injuries

Source: Banished Knowledge: Facing Childhood Injuries

“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.”

People Giving Feels Mean Children Persons Feelings Problem Seems Fighting Strong Parent Ought Demand Intellectual Weakness Solve Will Power

Book:The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self, Third Edition

Source: The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self, Third Edition

“Sadism is not an infectious disease that strikes a person all of a sudden. It has a long prehistory in childhood and always originates in the desperate fantasies of a child who is searching for a way out of a hopeless situation.”

Way Children Persons Long Situation Fantasy Childhood Disease Strikes Desperate Hopeless Sadism Prehistory Infectious Diseases Hopeless Situations

Book:For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

Source: For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

“The achievement of freedom is hardly possible without the felt mourning. This ability to mourn, i.e, to give up the illusion of a happy childhood, can restore vitality and creativity if a person is able to experience that he was never loved as a child for what he was, but for his achievements, success and good qualities. And that he sacrificed his childhood for this love, this will shake him very deeply.”