I M Perfect lady

Another section of "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware" by Alice Miller.

"This is why I keep trying to explain my position with the aid of various images and concepts. I always regard myself as the advocate for the child in my patients; whatever they tell me, I take their side completely and identify fully with the child in them, who usually is not yet available to experience his feelings and delegates them to me. It is rare for patients to reproach their parents, since their illness is a result of not being allowed to do this as a child."

If we could just understand this one sentence that our illness or confused minds ARE the result of the treatment in childhood, we would all begin to appreciate what happened and by whom, and then work to right our worlds; by placing the responsibility where it lies.

She goes on…

"If they do reproach them in the early stages on analysis, they soon give this up, torment themselves with guilt feelings, and attempt to defend their parents.  If aggression can be experienced at all, it takes adult forms  (scorn, irony, intellectual criticism), which originate at a much later date, for the rage felt by a very young child (an ambivalent, impotent rage) can never be experienced initially.  It is no different for adolescents who display defiant or even destructive behavior. In the beginning stages of analysis, the feelings stemming from early childhood are always unconscious."

"If we keep this in mind we will understand how crucial it is for the analyst not to be judgemental, not to appeal to the patient's reason, not to strive for objectivity, but simply to let himself be guided by the child, who is not yet able to speak.  Neither should it be the analyst's goal to bring about the patients reconciliation with his parents. If the analyst has seen for himself that his rage did not kill his parents, he will no longer feel compelled to protect the patient's parent from rage by working toward reconciliation. In most cases the analyst is the first person in the patient's life whom the latter can confide in, and it is important that this person not abuse the trust placed in him, not admonish or blame, not be shocked, but be willing to explore unfamiliar territory of the patient's life along with him. For the patient, too, will become acquainted with his own life for the first time."  Alice Miller

What we all fail to appreciate, and take and hold, is the role of therapist in the lives of the abuse and how critical it is that they NOT defend the parent in anyway.  And, how their own lives will be crucial in how the therapy session goes.  And, like Alice, always be an advocate for the child.

If anyone breathed a word of defense I knew they were standing away from the child within.

Also, I intuitively knew, that any word of reconciliation was about protecting the parents feelings and not mine. 

This simple and yet profound distinction has the gravity of how the 'treatement' will go.  

We look towards therapists to sort out our confusion; our childhood wounds.  And, if they are not the advocate to the frightened child within, they push him further back instead of letting him come forth.

My greatest challenge has been to remain on the side of the child, for most instinctively or out of fear…stand resolutely by the parent.  It is a societal phenomena to "Honor thy mother and thy father…"

The child that remains unseen and unheard is the one who goes out and inflicts his unexpressed pain on the world.  Hurt people, hurt people.

A child that is allowed to come forth and be heard and seen…is free from the silent dark hell that is the life of a child whose childhood is wrought with abuse.