Tag: roles

“Theories as a Protective Shield” chapter 4, in Banished Knowledge by Alice Miller, she writes…

“The feminist movement will forfeit none of its strength if it finally admits that mothers also abuse their children. Only the truth, even the most uncomfortable, endows a movement with the strength to change society, not the denial of truth. When men abuse their women and the women put up with it, both the violence of the men and the tolerance of the women are consequences of early child abuse. Hence young children, male as well as female, can become victims of adults of either sex. When sensitive nonbrutal women (and men) are incapable of protecting their children from the brutality of their partner, one must contribute this inability to the blinding process and the intimidation experienced in their own childhood. That is the simple truth. Only when these roots of all violence are exposed is it possible to examine the phenomena without retouching or embellishing them.”

“When a female therapist has been taught that men are solely to blame for all the evil of the world, she will, of course, be able to support her female patients when they eventually discover that they have been sexually abused by their fathers, grandfathers, or brothers: Unlike the followers of the drive theory, she will not talk them out of this truth. But as long as the truth about their mother who allowed the abuse to happen, who failed to protect the child and ignored her distress, is kept out of sight, the full reality is not allowed to be either perceived or acknowledged. And as long as the child’s feelings cannot be experienced, the rage against me – a rage she can already experience – remains impotent; it can even remain coupled with the undissolved loyalty and devotion toward the father or other abusive men.”

“When mothers are defended as pathetic victims, the female patient will not discover that with a loving, protective, perceptive, and courageous mother she could never have been abused by her father or brother. A daughter who has learned from her mother that she is worth protecting will find protection among strangers too and will be able to defend herself. When she has learned what love is, she will not succumb to simulated love. But a child who was merely pushed aside and disciplined, who never experienced soothing caresses, is not aware that anything like nonexploitative caresses can exist. She has no choice but to accept any closeness she is offered rather than be destroyed. Under certain circumstances she will even accept sexual abuse for the sake of finding at least some affection rather than freezing up entirely. When, as an adult woman, she comes to realize that she was cheated out of love, she may be ashamed of her former need and hence feel guilty. She will blame herself because she dare not blame her mother, who failed to satisfy the child’s need or perhaps even condemned it.”

“Psychoanalysts protect the father and embroider the sexual abuse of the child with the Oedipus, or Electra, complex, while some feminist therapists idealize the mother, thus hindering access to the child’s first traumatic experiences with the mother. Both approaches can lead to a dead end, since the dissolving of pain and fear is not possible until the full truth of the facts can be seen and accepted.”

“But even in the absence of ideological motives, the truth can be disregarded in therapies if the patient is offered no tolls to deal with his feelings and to systematically query and test his hypotheses. Even the harshest reproaches directed at the parents won’t help the patient achieve liberation as long as the truth remains inaccessible. This will be the case if, for example, the child had a father in whose presence he could scarcely utter a word without being interrupted and barked at. This patient may for a very long time find it impossible to achieve an inner confrontation with his father and to articulate his accusations. The liberated feelings are directed first against the mother, who terrorized the child less. The reverse may also happen – that the child feared his father less than he feared his mother and that the patient first accuses his father, quite unconsciously because the earlier experiences are still inaccessible, of things he actually experienced with his mother. Thus, based on self protection and fear, a distorted picture of the past takes shape. In the course of therapy these distortions can be corrected, provided the therapy is aimed at discovering the reality. If it is, the therapists knows that the patient can accuse only the parent in who he still had a modicum of confidence and not the parent in whose presence he had been paralyzed with fear. The therapist will help him discover the truth of his history so that he doesn’t blame the wrong people but blames those who really deserve it and, moreover, only for those deeds that were actually committed. For nobody achieves freedom by blaming people who in reality never harmed him. By directing diffuse, nonspecific, and unsubstantiated accusations at surrogate persons, the patient will achieve no improvement of his condition but will often remain in a state of disastrous confusion. Liberation comes with the ability to defend oneself where it is necessary and appropriate. The more realistic a person becomes and the more he frees himself of ideological and theoretical trimmings the better he will succeed.” Alice Miller