Paths of Life: Seven Scenarios (Paperback)

~ (Author) "CLAUDIA AND DANIEL WERE fellow students at Berkeley in the sixties..." (more)
Key Phrases: feeling therapy, Los Angeles, Wilhelm Reich, Arthur Janov (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Psychoanalyst Miller's important message is poorly served by her choice of medium in this collection of composite dialogues intended to show the consequences of childhood abuse and neglect. In her introduction, Miller (The Drama of the Gifted Child) explains that people are marked for life by their family experiences in early childhood, and that knowledge of how childhood suffering affects us in our adult lives is crucial. Even violent offenders, says Miller, can learn empathy for their victims once they begin to understand how their own adult behavior is rooted in cruelty they experienced as children. To show how this type of understanding can develop, Miller presents seven "scenarios" in which fictionalized characters talk out their problems. Miller intends these as stories but they read more like lectures than narratives. Though they deal with significant issues?childhoods filled with neglect, physical cruelty, sexual abuse?they lack emotion, drama and concrete detail. The characters' voices are indistinguishable?perhaps because each is really the voice of the detached analyst herself. At times, the book's message seems overstated, as when a mother agonizes that a difficult childbirth could have been avoided if only she had received proper encouragement. But the section dealing with the parent of a girl with Down's syndrome is, ultimately, quite moving. The two essays with which Miller ends this slim volume, "Gurus and Cult Leaders" and "What Is Hatred?," offer more intellectual substance and engaging insights than do the scenarios.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Miller, a world-famous Swiss psychologist and author (e.g., The Drama of the Gifted Child, BasicBks., 1994. reprint), here demonstrates that early childhood experiences contribute to adult behavior. Thus, while human nature is not inherently destructive, exposure to parental ignorance and neglect often results in the perpetuation of destructive behavior from one generation to the next. Miller provides detailed accounts of fictional characters, associating their childhood traumas with adult problems and abnormal family relationships; the scenario concerning a Holocaust survivor is especially poignant. Miller suggests that only by confronting hidden truths can an individual be released from a cycle of interpersonal destructiveness. The final segments, "Gurus and Cult Leaders" and "What Is Hatred?," summarize major concepts. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries.
-?Yan Toma, Queens Borough P.L., Flushing, NY
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (October 12, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375703454
• ISBN-13: 978-0375703454
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #510,960 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The "gift of truth" has the potential to heal relationships., March 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Paths of Life: Seven Scenarios (Hardcover)

Paths of Life: Seven Scenarios, Alice Miller, Pantheon Book, New York, 1998

Paths of Life: Seven Scenarios is Alice Miller's optimistic project about human interactions and their potential for healing. This new book is the first in seven years, and the eighth overall, by the former psychoanalyst and author of an unbroken string of classics. The seven scenarios consist of seven chapters of imaginary encounters between mature adults, and illustrate honest communications based on new awareness. The characters describe their lives--their environments, their successes and failures--and how they came to terms with them. Also included are expert opinions on parenting, psychotherapy, gurus and cult leaders, and the nature of hatred.

Dr. Miller's seven scenarios are about handling life and changing things for the better, and are intended to inform people and to encourage them to think. These imaginative encounters illustrate ways in which tackling sensitive interpersonal issues directly can clear the air and bring a feeling of liberation for both sides--and sometimes make the unexpected happen. Miller freely admits that this latest project arose from a wish to spare others what she herself has suffered, and reflects her old yearning for a genuine form of communication. Her intention is to explore how early experiences of suffering and love affect people's later lives, and the ways they relate to others; her hope is that this material will serve as a stimulus for organized inquiry. Embedded in the text are many timely teachings, reflecting her notion that "information is everything" (p. 35)--that information, at the right time, can set off a valuable process of reflection.

Should adult-children forgive their parents for maltreatment during childhood? As mature adults we can feel our pain and thereby increase authentic understanding--of ourselves, of our parents, and of the complexities of life. Feeling and understanding, argues Miller, differ markedly from blaming and forgiveness. We need to take full responsibility in our relationships, including those with our parents. As adults, we are autonomous. No longer are there any real dangers in confronting one's parents. The "gift of truth" can sometimes, though not always, change things for the better.

Concerning the primal therapies, Miller displays an informed and cautious optimism. She rightfully condemns those charlatans who would claim complete cure via regression, and their "theories" which--despite their scientific facade-- have absolutely nothing to do with science (p. 147). The goal of genuine therapy is, quite simply, the liberation of individual patients from their suffering. Resolving one's childhood issues is essential. Old patterns need to be properly worked through in a safe and reliable relationship, in the presence of someone who is genuinely sympathetic and willing to listen. It is entirely unacceptable for therapists to blame patients, or to create destructive dependencies.

There are positive aspects of the primal approach which can be salvaged, argues Miller, once it is acknowledged that primal therapy has distinct limitations and that it can have negative effects. Fortunately, primal therapists have increasingly moved away from the "initial absolutism." Many have jettisoned both the Intensive and the darkened office, having discovered better methods to enable their patients to feel (pp. 147-8). The original primal techniques are increasingly combined with those of other approaches. Still, there is a need to revise old concepts in light of these new techniques. And finally, there are grave dangers when the power of the primal approach is used to manipulate and exploit, as has been demonstrated all too often by unscrupulous "therapists," gurus and cults leaders.

As in all her books, Dr. Miller again demonstrates how the violence done to children devolves back on society as a whole (p. 155). Children who are beaten, for example, become emotional time bombs (p. 169). Still, child-victims can almost always develop trust if they are shown an understanding environment, and if the harm is identified as such, not disavowed or played down. Such children benefit from a "helping witness" who extends honesty, affection and love (if not protection); or a "knowing witness" who actively helps one to become conscious of their maltreatment and to articulate their sorrow (pp. 155-6). In some cases, a confrontation with the past is unavoidable in order to change things for the better (p. 178). Remember--it is the denial of our sufferings that is the breeding ground for hatred, an act of self-deception and an impasse that is deflected onto innocent victims (p. 186); the only factor separating rescuers and persecutors is the quality of parental nurture (p. 174). But here again is cause for optimism. We live in an age where far more people than ever before are growing up free of physical abuse, and these people can help to counteract the tradition of destructive violence that has plagued us for thousands of years (p. 186).

In this, her most recent work, Alice Miller states that she has grown more tolerant and patient as she's aged; that she no longer feels alone in what she knows; that she no longer has anything to prove. Her current volume supports such assertions. Who could argue that Miller's core contributions--The Drama of the Gifted Child (aka Prisoner of Childhood), For Your Own Good, Thou Shalt Not Be Aware, Pictures of a Childhood,The Untouched Key, Banished Knowledge, Breaking Down the Wall of Silence, and now Paths of Life--have failed to increase our individual consciousness of self and psychology, or to raise our collective awareness of significant social issues? We are fortunate, then, to receive this latest offering about the paths of ordinary life, about new understandings based on real feelings, and about genuine love that can face up to such truth (p. 186).

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Uneven . . ., March 11, 2001

By A Customer

This is my fourth book by Miller, having recently finished 'For Your Own Good' and 'Thou Shalt Not Be Aware.' Those works were hard hitting and unrelenting ('ferocious' said one reviewer) and for me that was what made them so effective. I found 'Paths of Life' to be weak reading at times, and if I had not read Miller's earlier more strident work, I don't know if I could have appreciated what she was trying to do here, with models of healing built from the realizations of our past injuries. I truly love Miller's message, as painful as it is at times to me personally, and I believe time will show her to be a prophet. Just the same, this book does not convey her message the most effectively and I don't recommend it as a starting point for her ideas.

So, why did I give it 5 stars? The closing chapter of the book, 'What is Hatred' is one of the most powerful and coherent looks yet at what happened in Nazi Germany. Miller recognizes the value of works like Goldhagen's, while pointing out how he too misses the mysterious question of why did the holocaust happen, why then, and why Germany? Miller's buring insight into this, the greatest mystery of our century, is worth the price of this book alone. She offers some explanation of the unexplainable. I could not put the book down during this closing essay. Highly recommended.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A touching, eye-opening book, November 28, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Paths of Life: Seven Scenarios (Hardcover)

Paths of Life is that rarest of creatures--a book that at once both touches and teaches. Alice Miller knows of what she writes. She was the first person (way back in the 1950s) to make the connection between corporal punishment and emotional dysfunction. She continues to prove her insightfulness with this latest book.