Banished Knowledge: Facing Childhood Injuries [Paperback]

Alice Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1991

In direct opposition to the Freudian drive  theory, the author of the best-selling The Drama  Of The Gifted Child believes that  children, at birth, are inherently good, and she  traces all forms of criminal deeds to past  mistreatments.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If, as a child, you were abused or neglected by someone you loved and trusted, it's likely you blamed yourself. To survive as an abused child, you struggled to forget the pain. But this tactic became a life-destroying force. It deadened your ability to feel, to be aware, to remember and, later, reemerged as unresolved rage, perhaps misdirected at your own children. You can halt that cycle and reclaim the truth about the abuse with this book. Miller's conviction--that it's only through feeling loved and cherished that cruelty can be recognized--provides a starting point for healing.

From Library Journal

In her strongest book yet advocating children's rights, Miller ( The Drama of the Gifted Child, The Untouched Key ) charges that psychoanalysis, a field in which she has worked for more than 20 years, perpetuates child abuse because its practitioners consistently deny the wrongs parents commit against their children. Her message is that both psychoanalysts and parents often fail to see abuse for what it is because they fail to comprehend their own childhood traumas. To illustrate her point, Miller draws from stories of child beatings, sexual abuse, and incest, frequently rationalized as forms of discipline and "necessary" sexual initiation. She also analyzes literary works (O'Neill, Kafka, Arthur Miller) that ultimately play down child abuse in the interest of family solidarity. To break destructive patterns, Miller outlines a new method of treatment, which, she says, improved her own life dramatically. Unfortunately, Miller devotes too little discussion to this method in favor of material she has covered in earlier works. Nonetheless, the reader is left with much to consider.
- Michelle Lodge, New York
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 212 pages
• Publisher: Anchor; 1st Anchor Bks Ed, 1st Print. 1991 edition (September 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385267622
• ISBN-13: 978-0385267625
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #337,824 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars getting to the root of childhood trauma, December 23, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Banished Knowledge: Facing Childhood Injuries (Paperback)

Several years ago while I was an undergraduate majoring in Mental Health, I read Banished Knowledge. At the time I was also engaged in personal psychotherapy, getting in touch with the traumas of my past. Banished Knowledge was the first book I read that really "put it out there". No glossing over issues, no excuses for errs committed by others, no shiny marketing techniques to make the subject more palatable- Alice Miller just stuck the truth right out there. the book changed my life. Now, after completing a master's degree in counseling, Banished Knowledge is still the book I most reccomend. Not only does Alice Miller eloquently describe what trauma is, but she describes the differnce between blame and accountability when attempting to understand one's perpetrator. At times, the truth is hard, but the victory of understanding one's own wounds is freeing in the end.

34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I believe this book was intended for a professional audience, March 22, 2000

By 

Jay Armstrong (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Banished Knowledge: Facing Childhood Injuries (Paperback)

First let me begin by saying that I really have enjoyed and learned from Miller's other works. They have been important text's for those of us not in "practice". So it was with high expectations that I purchased Banished Knowledge. After reading the first couple of chapters, I came to the conclusion that this book was more of a polemical text meant for the psychoanalsyst community then it was for the layperson. By the end of the book I was convinced that this was the case. However, I did find nuggets interspersed throughout the book that made the book at least worth reading if not completely satisfactory. If you are interested in purchasing this book with the expectations of, say, Drama of the Gifted Child just be prepared to find the writing written in a tone that seeks an audience not usually intended for her other works.

31 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Miller is God, August 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Banished Knowledge: Facing Childhood Injuries (Paperback)

Miller may make some extreme and perhaps unsupportable statements now and then, and don't expect a course in scientific method on every page, but her books lay out how the mind works more clearly and thoroughly than anything else I know of. Trying to understand the child, or the parent, or the mind, or trauma, or yourself without thoroughly digesting Miller is really unthinkable. Other excellent books by Miller include Drama of the Gifted Child (also called "Prisoners of Childhood") [read the original version, currently available only in hardcover] and For Your Own Good. As for other authors, important works on childhood trauma include Making Sense of Suffering by J. Konrad Stettbacher, Betrayal Trauma by Jennifer Freyd, and Soul Murder by Morton Schatzman (don't confuse this latter book with one of the same title by Leonard Schengold). Schatzman's book is inexplicably out of print, but it's worth getting from the library. An excellent, simple, and highly practical book is Toxic Parents by Susan Forward.