Breaking Down the Wall of Silence: The Liberating Experience of Facing Painful Truth

by Alice Miller

Overview

Miller incorporates psychohistorical analyses of Hitler, Stalin, and Ceausescu to reveal the links between the horrors of their childhoods and the horrors they inflicted on the world. She pleads for an awareness of society's role in child abuse and for recognition of the victim.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780465015047
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	12/09/2008
Edition description:	Revised
Pages:	186
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Alice Miller (1923-2010) achieved worldwide recognition for her work on the causes and effects of childhood traumas. She was also the author of many books, including The Truth Will Set You Free, Banished Knowledge, Breaking Down the Wall of Silence, Thou Shalt Not Be Aware, and For Your Own Good.

Table of Contents

Foreword vii

Part 1 Openings and Glimpses

1 Eve's Initiative 3

2 Out of the Prison of Confusion 9

3 The Psychiatrists' Campaign Against the Act of Remembering 17

4 Blindman's Buff and the Flight from Facts in Psychoanalysis 31

Part 2 Facts

5 Child Sacrifice as "Tradition" 47

6 The Monstrous Consequences of Denial 53

Adolf Hitler's Path to Genocide 53

Nicolae Ceausescu's Vision of Redemption 69

7 The Mistreated Child in the Lamentations of Jeremiah 87

Part 3 Giving Up Hypocrisy

8 The Liberating Experience of Painful Truth 101

9 Protecting Life After Birth 113

Afterword to the Paperback Edition 121

Appendix A Wars and Dictators 129

Appendix B A Law Against the Business of Tyranny 137

Appendix C A Letter to Alice Miller 143

Appendix D Ten Reasons Not to Hit Your Kids 145

Bibliography 149

Index 151

About the Author 165

Editorial Reviews

Feminist Review
“This is a beautiful, fierce, necessary book written by an emotionally intelligent lioness who continues her efforts to break through the wall—one brick, one book— at a time. I highly recommend it.”

Chicago Tribune
“Makes many provocative and persuasive points about the long-term effects of child abuse, the interdependence between society and child-rearing and, finally, the individual's need to confront memories, however painful.”

San Francisco Chronicle
“The applicability of Miller's concepts—especially during these divisive times—is what makes her message so cogent for American audiences.”

Moving Worlds
“A penetrating look at how to break the cycle of child abuse in today's world.”

New Age Journal
“Miller charts valuable territory.”

South Bend Tribune
“What Miller has to say is enlightening…This is not a book that can be read through once and put aside. The reader can return again and again as new truth is recognized.”

Science News
“A moving argument for awareness and condemnation of child abuse."

From the Publisher