The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Cruel Parenting Book

Never before has Alice Miller examined so persuasively how parental cruelty leads to long-term physical illness. World-renowned psychoanalyst Alice Miller has devoted a lifetime to studying how the cruelties inflicted on us as children cripple us as adults. In this new work, Miller goes further, investigating the long-range consequences of childhood abuse on the body—be it cancer, stroke, or other debilitating illnesses. Using the experiences of her patients along with the biographical stories of literary giants such as Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, and Marcel Proust, Miller shows how a child's humiliation, impotence, and bottled rage will manifest itself as adult illness. Never one to shy away from controversy, Miller urges society as a whole to jettison its belief in the Fourth Commandment and not to extend forgiveness to parents whose tyrannical child-rearing methods have resulted in unhappy, and often ruined, adult lives. This is an empowering work that enables readers to come to terms with their repressed emotions and break the cycle of violence.Read More