This groundbreaking classic of child-rearing, originally published in 1984, exploded Freud's notions of "infantile sexuality" and helped bring to the world's attention the brutal reality of child abuse.
Thou Shalt Not Be Aware: Society's Betrayal of the Child
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Miller parts company with Freud on the origins of children's fantasies in this progressive study of repressed memory. Forget the Oedipus complex. Miller reasons that when children suffer abuse, their feelings of pain and rage have nowhere to go in a society that esteems parental power over them as a natural right. Children have no choice but to internalize the anguish, creating a wellspring of fantasy material. This book offers a fresh take on how the unconscious retains memories of childhood and, without appropriate intervention, generates emotional ills and destructive behavior.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"A provactive critique of traditional therapy's view of childhood . . . This is explosive stuff. I can't imagine anyone coming away from this book without several newfound discoveries about herself and her relation to her parents."--Nancy Evans, Glamour
"Thou Shalt Not Be Aware is that rarest of gems, a highly creative and exciting work which throws a multifaceted light upon the development of human nature in the Western World."--Ashley Montagu
"Alice Miller is not out to 'hang the bastards,' but rather to help create a world of self-conscious and self-loving individuals who don't need, want or know how to abuse others."--Sheila Koren, San Francisco Chronicle
"It is timely. It is powerful. It is painful . . . absorbing, enlightening and provoking."--Louise Lione, Charlotte Observer
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
"Thou Shalt Not Be Aware is that rarest of gems, a highly creative and exciting work which throws a multifaceted light upon the development of human nature in the Western World."--Ashley Montagu
"Alice Miller is not out to 'hang the bastards,' but rather to help create a world of self-conscious and self-loving individuals who don't need, want or know how to abuse others."--Sheila Koren, San Francisco Chronicle
"It is timely. It is powerful. It is painful . . . absorbing, enlightening and provoking."--Louise Lione, Charlotte Observer
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must for anyone raised by other than perfect parents!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Thou Shalt Not Be Aware: Society's Betrayal of the Child (Paperback)
This is an incredibly liberating book. Ms. Miller is the strongest child advocate ever. She rejects the concept that children have power over adults (a la Lolita) and lets us see the true balance of power between children and their primary caretakers (which explains why over 3,000 children a year are murdered by their adult caretakers). All the guilt that parents lay on children for making them unhappy is revealed as the oppresion that it is. Finally, someone who doesn't insist that children (even adult ones) sacrifice themselves to the unresolved needs of their parents. Reading this book is a truly cathartic experience.
34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Liberating,
By jumpy1 (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Thou Shalt Not Be Aware: Society's Betrayal of the Child (Paperback)
In Thou Shalt Not Be Aware, Alice Miller turns Freud's oedipal complex on its head by exposing the circumstances that led Freud to side against his patients, and thus, against the truth of the life experiences of children. It is a great work by a highly regarded psychiatrist and thinker, well researched, and readily useful in applying to one's own life. For myself, this book (along with The Drama of the Gifted Child) helped to liberate me from the lies of my family and confront the abusers of my childhood without fear, dread or resentment, for, as I gradually accepted the facts of their lives as well as my own, I could accept the havoc they wreaked on mine, and finally take unashamed responsibility for my own life.
24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thank God for Alice Miller!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Thou Shalt Not Be Aware (Meridian) (Paperback)
Alice Miller has gotten through her pain and is being a true advocate by helping the rest of us through ours. The book, made me laugh, cry, gasp, and scream out loud. I read Drama of the Gifted Child first, and then this, and have read seven of her other books. I especially enjoy the personal references in all her books. This book was special to me because it uncovered the 'poisonous pedagomy' in my life, that had been there all the time. I did not even know it until I read this book. It told all about my life and how to get better. I wish I could have read this book years ago - I may not have to have been so miserable for so long! I am truly grateful to have found the works of Alice Miller. She is an inspiration and a mentor!!!
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
IT is of course not classical psychoanalysis alone that suppresses the question of how parents consciously, or more often unconsciously, treat their children in the first years of life; all the disciplines I know of that deal with the human psyche share this characteristic, including those with free access to the relevant facts, i.e., psychiatry, psychology, and various schools of psychotherapy. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
early childhood reality, first attachment figures, poisonous pedagogy, drive theory, hunger artist, drive conflicts, trauma theory, childhood suffering, forbidden door Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Franz Kafka, Gifted Child, Lord God, Fourth Commandment, Uncle Peter, Virgin Mary, Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein, Florence Rush, Helen Epstein, The Loneliness, Adolf Hitler, Felice Bauer, Gregor Samsa, King Laius, New York, The Aetiology of Hysteria, Tree of Knowledge, Analysands Describe Their Analysis, Heinz Kohut, Helm Stierlin, Hermann Kafka, Julie Kafka, Louise Armstrong, Max Brod New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
IT is of course not classical psychoanalysis alone that suppresses the question of how parents consciously, or more often unconsciously, treat their children in the first years of life; all the disciplines I know of that deal with the human psyche share this characteristic, including those with free access to the relevant facts, i.e., psychiatry, psychology, and various schools of psychotherapy. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
early childhood reality, first attachment figures, poisonous pedagogy, drive theory, hunger artist, drive conflicts, trauma theory, childhood suffering, forbidden door Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Franz Kafka, Gifted Child, Lord God, Fourth Commandment, Uncle Peter, Virgin Mary, Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein, Florence Rush, Helen Epstein, The Loneliness, Adolf Hitler, Felice Bauer, Gregor Samsa, King Laius, New York, The Aetiology of Hysteria, Tree of Knowledge, Analysands Describe Their Analysis, Heinz Kohut, Helm Stierlin, Hermann Kafka, Julie Kafka, Louise Armstrong, Max Brod New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 58
books:
See all 58 books this book cites
103
books
cite this book:
See all 103 books citing this book
- Letter to His Father/Brief an den Vater by Franz Kafka on 7 pages
- Letters to Felice by Franz Kafka on 6 pages
- The Penal Colony by Franz Kafka on 5 pages
- The Diaries of Frank Kafka 1910 - 1913 by Max (editor) Brod on 4 pages
- A Sentimental Education: The Story of a Young Man (Oxford World's Classics) by Gustave Flaubert on page 80, page 83, and Back Matter
See all 58 books this book cites
- Victimized Daughters: Incest and the Development of the Female Self by Janet Liebman Jacobs on 5 pages
- Inventing the Child: Culture, Ideology, and the Story of Childhood (Children's Literature and Culture, 17) by J. Zornado on page 66, page 68, and Back Matter
- The Eros Of Parenthood: Explorations In Light And Dark by Noelle Oxenhandler on page 171, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- The Death of Character: Moral Education in an Age Without Good or Evil by James Davison Hunter on page 95, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Truth or Dare: Encounters with Power, Authority, and Mystery by Starhawk in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
See all 103 books citing this book
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