The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Cruel Parenting (Hardcover)

by Alice Miller (Author), Andrew Jenkins (Translator) "FREQUENTLY, PHYSICAL ILLNESSES are the body's response to permanent disregard of its vital functions..." (more)
Key Phrases: enlightened witness, poisonous pedagogy, genuine communication, Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, Saddam Hussein (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In her latest vehement treatise, Swiss psychoanalyst Miller (The Drama of the Gifted Child) reprises her classic critiques of filial duty. In her view, our culture systematically denies childhood abuse sufferers access to their true feelings. Repressed emotional responses to early humiliations and unfulfilled needs are inevitably transferred to the body, Miller believes, producing long-term illness. She also believes that the majority of therapists are bent on fostering an attitude of forgiveness. Miller instead urges the reader to reappraise the substance of the Fourth Commandment, which she construes as containing "a kind of moral blackmail" and, reflecting on her own unhappy childhood, argues that what survivors of parental cruelty need most is someone who shares their feelings of indignation. Miller traces the relationship between inadequate or tyrannical parenting and adult bodily illness, depression and suicide in pithy biographies of Dostoyevski, Chekhov, Kafka, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and many others. Yet Miller is more a subjective observer and a guru than a social scientist. Her highly personal, undertheorized and generalizing approach will strike some as simplistic, yet those who loyally follow her child-centered philosophy will probably find much to enjoy in the conviction with which she writes. (May)
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Product Description
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.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. (May 2, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393060659
• ISBN-13: 978-0393060652
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #76,198 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #37 in	Books > Parenting & Families > Family Relationships > Child Abuse
  #44 in	Books > Health, Mind & Body > Psychology & Counseling > Physiological Aspects

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exciting, life-changing reading experience, May 3, 2005

By	Barbara Rogers "author of screams from childhood" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Alice Miller's "The Body Never Lies" is a provocation for those who are intent on denying that there is a relationship between how children are being treated and how they, later as adults, live their lives. They will fight against this book with those sad beliefs, which they learned in their childhoods and never questioned or left behind. But for those, for whom these connections are a fact and who are willing to explore their own past, their own lives and childhood suffering, this book provides great relief, even liberation.
On her life journey of research and writing, Alice Miller has gained great inner freedom and strength. In `The Body Never Lies', she courageously questions traditional morality and inspires us to face the often life long pain that children suffer through their parents. Her profound insights into this vital relationship create a truthful vision of man and his coercion to be destructive and self-destructive. Her visionary humanity leads the way into a new era, where the source of needless human suffering is movingly and powerfully recognized.
Like in an invisible jail, the fourth command confines many people into untruthful relationships with their parents, from which they often suffer. Abused and disrespected in childhood, they strive, still during their adult lives, to reach and even please cruel parents, who do not wish to understand and support them, who do not care about their well-being.
As long as they are under the spell of this command, they also often suffer in similar ways in other close relationships, denying their truth and reality like they had to as children with their parents. But there is a powerful witness to the suffering we endure through hypocritical, painful relationships--our body. Although we are trained to follow those moralistic expectations to honor our parents, no matter how they have treated us as children or treat us now as adults--the body refuses to do so. Again and again, it tries to communicate the tragic experiences that we carry hidden inside, in the unconscious. Alice Miller invites us to listen to and understand our bodies and ourselves with love by moving away from the destructive command that we must honor those who cause us harm and hurt us.

42 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book changed my life, March 17, 2006

By	Explorer (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews

After coasting through the past ten years in a fog of depression and unfulfilling relationships, I started seeing a counselor who recommended this book to me. I'm not exaggerating when I say it changed my life. Alice Miller argues that as children, we are often instructed to "honor" our parents and win their love by suppressing our genuine feelings - especially the hurt and anger we naturally feel in response to abuse. Society reinforces this belief by idealizing parents and discouraging us from telling the truth about what we experienced as children. However, this suppression has a poisonous effect on the body and mind (and society as a whole). As much as we try to hide those feelings, they make themselves known through various kinds of suffering, both emotional and physical.

Miller argues that once we are allowed to give voice to our true feelings and offer some compassion to ourselves - rather than the facade we have created to please others, namely our parents - then that real self no longer has to cry for attention through the suffering of our bodies and minds. This turned out to be very true for me. I feel that I can now be honest with myself and others without fearing rejection and loss of love. I highly recommend this book and Miller's other offerings to anyone dealing with depression, childhood abuse, or feelings of general emptiness and dissatisfaction.

**After recently re-reading this book, I would probably remove one star from my rating due to Miller's pure speculation in Part I, in which she deconstructs the writings and life stories of famous authors and artists. This section can also be slow and might be difficult for some readers to get through.

I also wish that she (or the translator) had broadened her definition of abuse. She frequently uses the term "beatings" to summarize the harm children can suffer at the hands of their parents. But mental and emotional abuse can be just as detrimental to a child's development and self-image, and readers who experienced such should not discount the impact of their own experiences. However, Miller's overall argument is so powerful that I can't help but recommend the book despite its flaws.

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A decisive new chapter, May 8, 2005

By	Io (Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews

I feel that this book is actually stronger than Alice Miller's last two efforts ("Breaking Down The Wall of Silence" and "The Truth Will Set you Free.") I have read all of her books thus far, and was very delighted to page through this new encounter. I have never seen the concept that our emotions, and the 'scars' left by abuse don't simply exist in a little part of our brains; but are found in all the cells of our body, and that in this inextricable link, illnesses can occur when things go wrong. I need only to look back to the way my own body has reacted to deception and cruelty to see how true this is.

In her chapter titled 'Carousel,' she revisits, in a way, the fascinating passage in 'Banished Knowledge' where she discussed coming across the poisonous story of little children and the accusative santa clause. This is, in my feeling, one of the best assets of her prose; the ability to make links based on a single experience. The case histories of authors she provides are not the in-depth ones of her earlier books; and indeed, that is exactly what she intended; to spark the readers interest in these biographies and how the writers experienced their abuse which led to the destruction of their bodies.

The chapter she wrote on anorexia was actually very enlightening; she really said something important in those pages, and I think her 'fictional diary' was really effective. The relationship to food and emotional nourishment seems quite valid. After reading her book, I really do agree with the premises that "the body never lies," and "deception kills love." I can see more clearly that sacrificing oneself towards the 'benefit' of one's parents is really a destructive, black hole that people who fall in can never truly meet with any form of life or vitality unless they escape it.