Dr. Alice Miller, author of a number of works regarding the effect of physical or sexual abuse in childhood, passed away on April 14th at her home in Provence, France; her death was announced on the 23rd by her German publisher.
Her obituary in The New York Times noted that her first book, The Drama of the Gifted Child (originally titled 'Prisoners of Childhood') set forth in three essays "a simple but harrowing proposition. All children, she wrote, suffer trauma and permanent psychic scarring at the hands of parents, who enforce codes of conduct through psychological pressure or corporal punishment: slaps, spankings or, in extreme cases, sustained physical abuse and even torture."
"Unable to admit the rage they feel toward their tormenters," the Times continued, "Dr. Miller contended [that] these damaged children limp along through life, weighed down by depression and insecurity, and pass the abuse along to the next generation, in an unending cycle. Some, in a pathetic effort to please their parents and serve their needs, distinguish themselves in the arts or professions. The Stalins and the Hitlers, Dr. Miller later wrote, inflict their childhood traumas on millions."
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