Alice Miller

http://www.alice-miller.com/index_en.php

The undaunted beauty of those who have tirelessly learned about child abuse, Alice Miller's grace resonates within the gentle gift of giving.  As a woman, mother, artist and psychologist, she studied adverse affects and the painful beauty of children and their environments.  She was born in Poland in January of 1923 and migrated to Switzerland where she received her doctorates in philosophy, psychology and sociology in 1953 at Basel.  Her life as a psychoanalyst gave her insight to human interactions and her revelations of child maltreatment catapulted her as a leader in the field of child abuse awareness and prevention.  Miller was dedicated in her own theories and evaluations. Today, they are applied and utilized as a means to an end.  Her work emphasizes that child maltreatment and violence could be known, understood and curtailed by accepting responsibility and understanding interpersonal actions.  


Miller wrote numerous books on childhood issues concerning development and interpersonal perspectives for healing.  Most notably, The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self digs deep into the psyche of the effects of trauma of young children.  She hits all the marks on addressing the issues of personality development, loss of love, inner prisons, depression and repressed memory.  She continued to explore how trauma manifested itself in adults.  The Drama of the Gifted Child was her first book and published in 1979.  


In the next year, she wrote For Your Own Good, which examined the child rearing of Hitler, revealing the toxic pedagogy of Hilter's childhood.  In her studies, she often utilized art pieces and lives of artists as illustrative views by assessing psychobiographies of Nietzche, Picasso, Kollwitz and Buster Keaton.  Her elegance and views on reclaiming the inner child, the youthful exuberance of innocence is reiterated in her work and personal life.  Sadly, she passed on April 14, 2010 while residing at  Saint-Rémy de Provence, France.  She lived as a relative recluse and was 87 years old at her death.  Her spirit lives in many of us as we learn from one of the most dedicated people of today's time.  Her wide knowledge goes beyond the issue of child abuse and reflects humanity in its purest form.  




A collection of her books and paintings -