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

by Alice Miller (Author) "I WOULD LIKE TO BEGIN WITH THE STORY OF A woman in her mid-thirties who wrote to me and, without knowing it, became involved in..." (more)
Key Phrases: helping witness, enlightened witness, mistreated child, Banished Knowledge, Adolf Hitler, Nicolae Ceausescu (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
The culture that ignores roots of hatred and tyranny embedded in its own childrearing traditions, warns Miller, renders itself ripe for payback. Her analyses of the likes of Hitler and Nicolae Ceausescu lend epic significance to her point. Her disclosure of her own abuse gives her plea for truth a potent intimacy that brings the issue home to us all. She calls on society at large to condemn poisonous methods of discipline and, with the eloquence of a survivor, points the way to a liberating awareness for victims whose past still exerts a devastating grip. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews
A curiously defensive work, continuing the author's studies on child abuse and how it molds tyrants. Miller (Banished Knowledge, 1990, etc.) is both prolific (this is her third book in two years) and eloquent in her continuing indictment of parents who abuse their children and societies that tolerate such behavior. Generally, she speaks most directly to the traditional pattern of German families, where the father is tyrant, and the punishment is ``for your own good'' (the title of one of her books). From this pattern are bred fascist leaders like Hitler and Stalin. She now adds Ceausescu of Romania, with a convincing analysis of the childhood that produced a man who could warehouse babies. No doubt an analysis of Saddam Hussein will follow. It is troublesome, however, that this book seems to be a vehicle to get back at her critics. Miller lashes out at the media and the psychoanalytic establishment for minimizing her theories, using the same kind of circular reasoning that she says psychoanalysts use: You can't face the truth because you can't face the truth. Choppy and disjointed, full of Miller quoting herself, and best saved only for those collecting the complete Alice Miller. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Plume; Revised edition (January 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452011736
• ISBN-13: 978-0452011731
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #486,962 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything Alice Miller writes is priceless!, May 10, 1999

By A Customer

And I do not say such things lightly. As a survivor of childhood abuse her books have helped me understand myself so much and helped me heal myself and be my OWN compassionate witness. I think her books should be required reading in junior high schools so that these young adults will learn they DO NOT have to repeat the mistakes of the adults around them if they ever have children themselves and also help them realize just how much damage has been done to them (if any) in the name of a 'proper upbringing' or out and out abuse.

These books are not easy reading especially if you have been abused yourself but they are WORTH IT! Alice Miller's books have helped me make myself a better and *healthier* person.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truth is painful and healing, July 6, 2004

By	MARY ANN AMADORA, MSCP (HONOLULU, HAWAII United States) - See all my reviews

Never before have I read words that were so profound. Dr. Miller is the bravest and most courageous person since Dr.Seigmond Freud. He too, had been rebuked by all his medical peers, yet he had the answer dead correct. Women who had experienced sexual hysteria as young adults had been indeed sexually violated as a children.
Dr. Alice Miller has indeed shed new light to where evil and abuse is created. We are still in the Dark Ages of how truly one is effected by pain, abandonment, neglect, threats, ritualistic beatings, isolation, spankings, intimidating looks, witnessing abuse and horror,lost, frightened, screams not answered, not comforted and so on as a newborn and throughout his formative years.
The irony is, we as a society will not and can not take responsibility of our own creation of evil and hatred due to ignorance, arrogance and denial.

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars alice miller is to be commended for her never-ending work, September 28, 1998

By A Customer

Dr. Alice Miller is to be commended for her never-ending work, and delving, into the deep, dark, limitless oceans of the un-worked through human mind, the last, and Ignored, Frontier. Her courage in facing the Truth and revealing it, ONLY to the WILLING reader, is to be genuinely admired. This Society owes her a great debt in her courage in facing her own personal truth and revealing the DEVASTATING FACTS about children in the hands of merciless, conscienceless, violent, justifying "adults". The reason this society appears such a mess is because of the very adults this WONDERFUL writer describes, as they raise the children we will face as adults, in our daily lives. If every parent on Earth were as conscious, honest, courageous and kind as Dr. Alice Miller, this planet would be The Paradise we all Pray for.