Book by book, Miller uncovers vital keys to parenting

Two days from the time of this writing, Alice Miller will turn 86. And I hope she has a lovely birthday, surrounded by the people she loves the most.

German born, Alice Miller is a Ph.D. in philosophy, psychology and sociology. She is a researcher on childhood, and the author of 13 books. I commend you to her Web site: http://www.alice-miller.com/index_en.php.

I met Alice Miller, so to speak, in the summer of 1985, in Laguna Beach, Calif. I was browsing a bookstore. My eye fell on a little paperback. My hand lifted, as if pulled toward the book by some force of destiny. The book was "The Drama of the Gifted Child: How Narcissistic Parents Form and Deform Our Children."

I bought the book on the spot. Went home and simply drank it in. It changed my life. And it's still changing my life.

In "Drama," the vision that would be Miller's life work was emerging. Forming. She narrates what seems a dawning realization even to herself. Put simply, babies need to gaze out of the bassinet into the face of healthy parents. The face of a healthy parent provides a mirror to the emerging consciousness of the child, and reflects life and love to the end that the child can develop a healthy self.

When parenting patterns are narcissistic, a poorly developed adult stares into the bassinet still looking for his or her own mirror, seeking from the child a convenient canvas for projections and conscripting that child into the adult's ego-denials.

Then, in 1983, Miller exploded with the book I consider her defining work: "For Your Own Good." She does not mince words: The last 500 years of Euro-American parenting patterns include socially acceptable barbarism. We hit children. We humiliate them. Exploit them. Having lived as an adult in Germany through World War II, she postures the Holocaust as a stunning metaphor. Adolf Hitler is The Father -- all powerful, wise ... and brutal. The father abuses some of the children (the Jews), and the other siblings (German citizenry) "agree" to pretend it's not happening. At least to participate in it through obedient silence.

Miller says that it is never cruelty, abuse and neglect that ultimately harm a child. Rather, psychological damage is chiefly caused when the child is not allowed access to his/her feelings about the abuse. For example, if a parent slaps a child's face, what happens if that child were to spin their head back around to confront the parent with blazing eyes and indignation. You guessed it: The child would be slapped again. The message? Not only may I lay my hands on you in violence and humiliation as I see fit, but you are not allowed to have any feelings about it.

This is crazy-making.

Miller believed the early days of psychoanalysis unwittingly participated in the denial of parental cruelty of children, often blaming the children and later adults for their own suffering. Miller was one of the first people I ever heard wonder aloud whether Freud's theory of the "infantile wish" (sexual desire for the parent) was his own defensive, perhaps horrified reaction to the overwhelming number of patients reporting childhood sexual abuse.

"For Your Own Good" is painful to read, but ultimately hopeful. As adults become willing to own and experience their appropriate outrage over childhood injustice and suffering, they are set free to become true adults. Thus liberated, they are much less likely to visit this same suffering upon their own children.

"Thou Shalt Not Be Aware" continues the discussion. "The Untouched Key" examines the difference between abused children whose psychological wounds render them socially incompetent, or in some cases a danger to society, and abused children who, as adults, achieve a functionality or even thrive. The answer: The presence of One Competent Adult in the child's past. Someone who can acknowledge the abuse, affirm the child's rightful outrage, and thus give the child a knot at the end of the rope of despair.

Her latest publication is simply moving. "From Rage to Courage" is a collection of letters from readers from all over the world, and Miller's answers and reflections on those letters.

Hardly a day goes by that Alice Miller's work doesn't inform some part of how I shape an understanding of an adult patient, and how I then proceed. She wants nothing less but to change the world, by restoring a fundamental respect to child-rearing patterns, and setting free those of us who did not find in our childhood homes the respect we deserved.

Alice Miller is one of my life's most important heroes.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Clear View Counseling Wellness Center in Las Vegas and the author of "Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing" (Stephens Press). His columns appear on Sundays. Contact him at skalas@reviewjournal.com.