Re: Re: Child Emotional Care Influences Genetic Expression

[Guest guest]

,

I also had natural birth, nursed my babies for a year minimum. stayed home.

I'm a great mom. nada however was knocked out when I was born and turned me

over to a Swiss nanny. then she had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized.

the beginning of many. I don't see any relationship between my ability and

hers.

[Guest guest]

,

I agree.

As usual, substitute " emotional violence " for " violence " in the below

article.

THE ESSENTIAL ROLE OF AN ENLIGHTENED WITNESS IN SOCIETY

http://www.naturalchild.com/alice_miller/witness.html

by Alice , Ph.D.

Since adolescence I have always wondered why people take pleasure in

humiliating others. Clearly the fact that some people are sensitive to the

suffering of others proves that the destructive urge is not a universal

aspect of human nature. So why do some tend to solve their problems by

violence while others don't?

Philosophy failed to answer my question, and the Freudian theory of the

death wish has never convinced me. It was only by closely examining the

childhood histories of murderers, especially mass murderers, that I began to

comprehend the roots of good and evil: not in the genes, as commonly

believed, but often in the earliest days of life. Today, it is inconceivable

to me that a child who comes into the world among attentive, loving and

protective parents could become a predatory monster. And in the childhood of

the murderers who later became dictators, I have always found a nightmarish

horror, a record of continual lies and humiliation, which upon the

attainment of adulthood, impelled them to acts of merciless revenge on

society. These vengeful acts were always garbed in hypocritical ideologies,

purporting that the dictator's exclusive and overriding wish was the

happiness of his people. In this way, he unconsciously emulated his own

parents who, in earlier days, had also insisted that their blows were

inflicted on the child for his own good. This belief was extremely

widespread a century ago, particularly in Germany.

I found it logical that a child beaten often would quickly pick up the

language of violence. For him, this language became the only effective means

of communication available. Yet what I found to be logical was apparently

not so to most people.

When I began to illustrate my thesis by drawing on the examples of Hitler

and Stalin, when I tried to expose the social consequences of child abuse, I

encountered fierce resistance. Repeatedly I was told, " I, too, was a

battered child, but that didn't make me a criminal. " When I asked for

details about their childhood, I was always told of a person who loved them,

but was unable to protect them. Yet through his or her presence, this person

gave them a notion of trust, and of love.

I call these persons helping witnesses. Dostoyevsky, for instance, had a

brutal father, but a loving mother. She wasn't strong enough to protect him

from his father, but she gave him a powerful conception of love, without

which his novels would have been unimaginable. Many have also been lucky

enough to find enlightened and courageous witnesses, people who helped them

to recognize the injustices they suffered, to give vent to their feelings of

rage, pain and indignation at what happened to them. These persons never

became criminals.

Anyone addressing the problem of child abuse is likely to be faced with a

very strange finding: it has frequently been observed that parents who abuse

their children tend to mistreat and neglect them in ways resembling their

own treatment as children, without any conscious memory of their own

experiences. It is well known that fathers who bully their children through

sexual abuse are usually unaware that they had themselves suffered the same

abuse. It is only in therapy, even if ordered by the courts, that they

discover, stupefied, their own history, and realize thereby that for years

they have attempted to act out their own scenario, just to get rid of it.

How can this be explained? After studying the matter for years, it seems

clear to me that information about abuse inflicted during childhood is

recorded in our body cells as a sort of memory, linked to repressed anxiety.

If, lacking the aid of an enlightened witness, these memories fail to break

through to consciousness, they often compel the person to violent acts that

reproduce the abuse suffered in childhood, which was repressed in order to

survive. The aim is to avoid the fear of powerlessness before a cruel adult.

This fear can be eluded momentarily by creating situations in which one

plays the active role, the role of the powerful, towards a powerless person.

But this is not an easy path to rid oneself of unconscious fears. And this

is why the offense is ceaselessly repeated. A steady stream of new victims

must be found, as recently demonstrated by the pedophile scandals in

Belgium. To his dying day, Hitler was convinced that only the death of every

single Jew could shield him from the fearful and daily memory of his brutal

father. Since his father was half Jewish, the whole Jewish people had to be

exterminated. I know how easy it is to dismiss this interpretation of the

Holocaust, but I honestly haven't yet found a better one. Besides, the case

of Hitler shows that hatred and fear cannot be resolved through power, even

absolute power, as long as the hatred is transferred to scapegoats. On the

contrary, if the true cause of the hatred is identified, is experienced with

the feelings that accompany this recognition, blind hatred of innocent

victims can be dispelled. Sex criminals stop their depredations if they

manage to overcome their amnesia and mourn their tragic fate, thanks to the

empathy of an enlightened witness. Old wounds can be healed if exposed to

the light of day. But they cannot be repudiated by revenge.

A Japanese crew shot a film of therapeutic work in a prison in Arizona,

where the method was based, inter alia, on my books. I was sent the video

cassette and found the results very revealing. The inmates worked in groups,

talked a lot about their childhood, and some of them said, " I've been all

over the place, and killed innocent people to avoid the feelings I have

today. But I know that I can bear these feelings in the group, where I feel

safe. I no longer need to run around and kill, I'm at home here, I recognize

what happened. The past recedes, and my anger along with it. "

For this process to succeed, the adult who has grown up without helping

witnesses in his childhood needs the support of enlightened witnesses,

people who have understood and recognized the consequences of child abuse.

In an informed society, adolescents can learn to verbalize their truth and

to discover themselves in their own story. They will not need to avenge

themselves violently for their wounds, or to poison their systems with

drugs, if they have the luck to talk to others about their early

experiences, and succeed in grasping the naked truth of their own tragedy.

To do this, they need assistance from persons aware of the dynamics of child

abuse, who can help them address their feelings seriously, understand them

and integrate them, as part of their own story, instead of avenging

themselves on the innocent.

I have wrongly been attributed the thesis according to which every victim

inevitably becomes a persecutor, a thesis that I find totally false, indeed

absurd. It has been proved that many adults have had the good fortune to

break the cycle of abuse through knowledge of their past. Yet I can

certainly aver that I have never come across persecutors who weren't victims

in their childhood, though most of them don't know it because their feelings

are repressed. The less these criminals know about themselves. the more

dangerous they are to society. So I think it is crucial for the therapist to

grasp the difference between the statement, " every victim ultimately becomes

a persecutor, " which is false, and " every persecutor was a victim in his

childhood, " which I consider true. The problem is that, feeling nothing, he

remembers nothing, realizes nothing, and this is why surveys don't always

reveal the truth. Yet the presence of a warm, enlightened witness -

therapist, social aid worker, lawyer, judge - can help the criminal unlock

his repressed feelings and restore the unrestricted flow of consciousness.

This can initiate the process of escape from the vicious circle of amnesia

and violence.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

----

© Alice , 1997.

Re: Child Emotional Care Influences Genetic Expression

> cathy,

> i was just relating to what the article said and applying it to my

> relationship with my nada.

> i've also always firmly believed that we turn out just fine if we

> are nurtured by SOMEONE and that it doesn't have to be the birth

> mother. too many happy adopted kids out there.

> or maybe you weren't nurtured like you should have been and you've

> become a great mom out of sheer determination to NOT do what your

> nada did. that has certainly always been in the back of MY mind when

> dealing with my kids.

> and good for you for being such a good mom. you rock

> karen

>

>

>

>

> > ,

> > I also had natural birth, nursed my babies for a year minimum.

> stayed home.

> > I'm a great mom. nada however was knocked out when I was born and

> turned me

> > over to a Swiss nanny. then she had a nervous breakdown and was

> hospitalized.

> > the beginning of many. I don't see any relationship between my

> ability and

> > hers.

> >

> >

> >

[Guest guest]

Here's a link to the long version of the Enlightened Witness article which

I've posted several times before,

Alice : The Childhood Trauma

http://www.vachss.com/guest_dispatches/alice_miller2.html

Re: Child Emotional Care Influences Genetic Expression

>

>

> > cathy,

> > i was just relating to what the article said and applying it to my

> > relationship with my nada.

> > i've also always firmly believed that we turn out just fine if we

> > are nurtured by SOMEONE and that it doesn't have to be the birth

> > mother. too many happy adopted kids out there.

> > or maybe you weren't nurtured like you should have been and you've

> > become a great mom out of sheer determination to NOT do what your

> > nada did. that has certainly always been in the back of MY mind when

> > dealing with my kids.

> > and good for you for being such a good mom. you rock

> > karen

> >

> >

> >

> >

> > > ,

> > > I also had natural birth, nursed my babies for a year minimum.

> > stayed home.

> > > I'm a great mom. nada however was knocked out when I was born and

> > turned me

> > > over to a Swiss nanny. then she had a nervous breakdown and was

> > hospitalized.

> > > the beginning of many. I don't see any relationship between my

> > ability and

> > > hers.

> > >

> > >

> > >

[Guest guest]

Here's a link to the long version of the Enlightened Witness article which

I've posted several times before,

Alice : The Childhood Trauma

http://www.vachss.com/guest_dispatches/alice_miller2.html

Re: Child Emotional Care Influences Genetic Expression

>

>

> > cathy,

> > i was just relating to what the article said and applying it to my

> > relationship with my nada.

> > i've also always firmly believed that we turn out just fine if we

> > are nurtured by SOMEONE and that it doesn't have to be the birth

> > mother. too many happy adopted kids out there.

> > or maybe you weren't nurtured like you should have been and you've

> > become a great mom out of sheer determination to NOT do what your

> > nada did. that has certainly always been in the back of MY mind when

> > dealing with my kids.

> > and good for you for being such a good mom. you rock

> > karen

> >

> >

> >

> >

> > > ,

> > > I also had natural birth, nursed my babies for a year minimum.

> > stayed home.

> > > I'm a great mom. nada however was knocked out when I was born and

> > turned me

> > > over to a Swiss nanny. then she had a nervous breakdown and was

> > hospitalized.

> > > the beginning of many. I don't see any relationship between my

> > ability and

> > > hers.

> > >

> > >

> > >