Quotes by Alice MIller, The Drama of the gifted child

“Although the outward picture of depression is quite the opposite of that of grandiosity and has a quality that expresses the tragedy of the loss of self in a more obvious way, they have many points...”

“Because the victims are only children, their distress is trivialized. But in twenty years time these children will be adult who will feel compelled to pay it all back to their own children. They ma...”

“Once upon a time there was a child who had a golden brain. His parents only discovered this by chance when he injured his head and gold instead of blood flowed out. They then began to look after hi...”

“True autonomy is preceded by the experience of being dependent. True liberation can be found only beyond the deep ambivalence of infantile dependence.”

“Experience has taught us that we have only one enduring weapon in our struggle against mental illness: the emotional discovery and emotional acceptance of the truth in the individual and unique his...”

“Without realizing that the past is constantly determining their present actions, they avoid learning anything about their history. They continue to live in their repressed childhood situation, igno...”

“This story sounds as though it were invented, but it is true from beginning to end. There are people who have to pay for the smallest things in life with their very substance and their spinal cord....”

“Narcissistic cathexis of the child by the mother does not exclude emotional devotion. On the contrary, she loves the child as her self-object, excessively, though not in the manner that he needs, a...”

“Today it is hardly possible for any group to remain so isolated from others who have different values. Therefore it is necessary today for the individual to find support within himself. . . This st...”

“Once upon a time there was a child who had a golden brain. His parents only discovered this by chance when he injured his head and gold instead of blood flowed out. They then began to look after hi...”

“Where there had been only fearful emptiness or equally frightening grandiose fan­tasies, an unexpected wealth of vitality is now discovered. This is not a homecoming, since this home has never befo...”

“Child abuse is still sanctioned — indeed, held in high regard — in our society as long as it is defined as child-rearing. It is a tragic fact that parents beat their children in order to escape the...”

“Because the victims are “only children,” their distress is trivialized. But in twenty years’ time these children will be adult who will feel compelled to pay it all back to their own children. They...”

“I've spoken of the patient Peter who was obsessively forced to make conquests with women, to seduce and then to abandon them, until he was at last able to experience how he himself had repeatedly b...”