A Guest Article: Where Is Love Going?

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Where has all the love gone?

The burning flame of passionate mutuality is burning out as people obsessively chase ratings in the mating game

Monday, 21 June 2010, The Independent

A 25th wedding anniversary party thrown by some dear friends on Saturday was a fabulous celebration of enduring ardour and affection. The husband, a musician, got us singing old romantic songs as he played the piano. But as joy filled the marquee, I felt a whit of unease and then the cold touch of melancholia.

My brother-in-law, who died recently, was devoted to my mentally ill sister for three decades. How many marriages of the future would have such perseverance and longevity? Why did the songs sound like ghosts from an era long gone, never to return? Completely by coincidence my first wedding in 1972 was on the same date, the 19th of June. It didn't last, couldn't survive the self-gratifying Eighties which led inexorably to our age of narcissism and commodification of everything, including intimacy.

Even Martin Amis, both an embodiment and chronicler of the Thatcherite culture, is somewhat unnerved by modernity, in particular, by the way sex today is severed from feelings. About the long sex fest in his latest book, The Pregnant Widow, he says, disarmingly, "it's pornographic sex. It's easy to write because the emotion has been withdrawn. It's cynical and recreational".

Before long, says David Levy, people will be able to get a robot to satisfy their sex needs and programme in the required doses of affection too. Levy, a successful computer chess programmer, wrote a book on the metallic objects of desire that will end unhappiness because "everyone can have someone" in their empty lives. He isn't crazy. You can already buy the Japanese made Honeydoll, a pleaser which (who?) emits orgasmic sounds when stroked. Perhaps next, boy dolls proving their manhood upon being touched by keen hands.

In 2005, brain researchers from New York University at Stony Brook reported in the Journal of Neurophysiology that sex and love produce different body responses and that romantic love is a more powerful force than mere sex drive. It is what makes us human. That precious, fragile, universal bond between partners may not survive long in the West. Men and women can copulate more imaginatively and freely than ever before; they just can't talk as well with lovers, care for them, and make love.

The burning flame of passionate mutuality is burning out as people obsessively chase ratings in the mating game. Loveless sex, aided by Viagra and other chemicals, is an anesthetised experience, unmemorable and futile. The internet is full of sex advice, addicts, positions, tricks, fantasies, costumes and porn. There is hardly anything on the emotional truths and gifts of love.

In the east and south, love is endangered by other brute forces. These countries have their tragic fables of impossible love. Films, books, songs and poems lament unfortunate and impulsive paramours who can't resist each other. Once people understood that wasn't real life. Now, as individualism and the idea of personal choice spreads across the globalised world, sensual love is awakened in these societies, threatening the old order under which marriages reinforce social and familial ties, maintain patriarchal control and involve clever economic calculations.

That is why there is a sharp increase in forced marriages, more murders of young lovers (as happened in Delhi this month when a couple were tortured and killed by the girl's family), veiling, ruthless state interventions too. Loving sex is banned. Meanwhile the use of porn and prostitution rises fast.

We can imagine what will happen if we neglect the environment, overpopulate the planet, fail to tackle inequality. More perilous still would be a future throbbing with heartless, instant, blanked out sex and no abiding love. We may find a way of coping with dried rivers, but dried hearts?

That Stygian future is fast approaching. Those of us filled with foreboding fear it may already be too late.

(reprinted by direct permission of the author)

Looking For Doctors, Psychiatrists and other Highly Paid, Highly Educated Helping Professionals: Questions and Concerns

I make a habit of interviewing highly paid medical people, just one or two questions, before I make a first appointment with them. If they will not answer these questions and insist that I make an appointment first, or answer in a way that makes me doubt their ability to treat me as a partner in my care as opposed to a subject of their care, then I go on shopping for someone else

The last time I switched doctors my first question was to the receptionist/intake person: Can Dr. Smith (not the real name) talk to me briefly on the phone prior to making an appointment so I can ask him/her a few questions to see if I think it would work out? If the receptionist said I had to make an appointment first, I went on to the next choice of “candidates”. If they said “yes” and the doctor actually called, then I asked my follow-up questions about my own particular circumstance: the thing/s that are most important to me related to the ways I prefer I be engaged in a relationship with a professional helper or health care provider.

One of my questions that time had to do with sharing confidential information.

I am in a thirty-year-old unmarried relationship with my life-partner and want to be assured that, when necessary, my written power-of-attorney (DPOA) wishes, that my partner be kept informed and an important part of decision making, be honored without fail and without question. This is more important to me because of a potentially catastrophic situation that arose with a doctor who was my partner’s and my primary physician. My well-documented and routinely reinforced power of attorney status was summarily revoked while my partner suffered a rather terrifying reaction to a medication the doctor prescribed. During a number of phone calls to their office during this crisis (Susan’s skin had turned bright scarlet, she was projectile vomiting and I found her semi-delirious after one dose of a powerful antibiotic), because I asked too many questions and expressed fear and was upset, I was told the office staff would no longer speak to me about the situation! Of course, when we went looking for a new doctor, questions about the integrity of how our DPOA status would be honored within the prospective office were paramount.

Each person will, of course, tailor their own questions to fit their own situations and concerns. This is a brief initial “employment” interview. Your prospective “helper” will be able to bill you or your insurance company for substantial amounts and make their living (often at a much greater rate of income than you or anyone else they serve) through the services they deliver to you. They are being hired by you. It is important to keep that in mind, in spite of the powerful position these people can occupy in our lives..

As an aside on this subject, and as a kind of unabashed advertising for Professional Coaching I want to say that one thing that attracted me to practicing as a Life, Family and Business Systems Coach is that the coaching process usually includes a free initial session to help determine if the “fit” will be good, from both the client's and the professional’s standpoint.

Other questions that might reflect your own concerns are as follows:

1. What is the average amount of time I will have to wait in your office before I am seen for an appointment?

2. How much time do you usually allot in your schedule for each appointment?

3. What is you experience treating people of my racial [gender, sex preference, cultural, occupation etc.] background.

4. Tell me your philosophy of your relationship to your patients.

5. Can I expect that you will routinely let me know what a procedure/medicine/assessment/service will cost, and if my insurance will cover it (or how much of it my insurance will cover) prior to ordering it?

6. What is your philosophy about non-traditional or non-western approaches to your area and scope of practice?

There could be many others.

There are good people out there, but also too many who think that book smarts and the number of letters after their name equals excellent clinical acumen.

I would be especially careful of any clinician if you get any inkling from them, through this interview process, that they have not been able to master the skills of non-judgment. Do they strike you as being so blind to their own value paradigms and prejudices that they will not be able to put them aside in the treatment of those they serve? Questions to get a quick picture of this dynamic might be important to you.

Knowledge, insight and applicable skill related to race, socio-economic, cultural and gender/sexuality related differences are especially common unlearned skill areas in highly paid, highly educated, people who generally have little-to-no intimate, equality based, experience with people outside their own cultural sub-categories. This is aided and abetted by the nature of segregation, especially in higher education in the US.
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To close, here is another bit of input especially about psychiatry:

Remember that psychiatry has changed a lot from its early days of being the founding profession of "The Talking Cure". Now the profession is largely about medication prescription and administration and any talking is to those ends, especially if you are dealing with publicly-funded psychiatric services.

Once more, psychiatrists may be excellent at what they do but are not very good at supportive and insight developing/non-medication related behavior change via talking/listening strategies and techniques. If you are looking for someone adept in those skills you might look elsewhere.

It is, however, often productive to have a counselor and psychiatrist working together with you... especially if there is some inevitability about medications being a part of what you will require in their care. If that is the case, make sure your helpers talk to each other and do not have too much inter-professional hubris about who is best at what part of the work that is being done. If you hear one blame the other for perceived misapplication of practice or judgment, it might be wise to go elsewhere… or at least to be quite direct about the inappropriate nature of sharing such professional dissonance with you perched in the middle.

It is also important to decide, when choosing a helper, whether you think confrontation will be a useful tool in helping you with your plan to move forward in your life.

Regardless of the proof that confrontation is at best a last resort technique and generally ineffective in producing change, it remains a technique used widely by ineffective clinicians who bring too many of their own unexamined value judgments into the therapeutic relationship, whether it concerns a medical issue or a “talking cure”.

Confrontation, over-used, is akin to emotional and verbal abuse, and though it may be a normal and even preferable direct communication device used between family members, it is out-of-place in professional relations and really only serves the needs and wants of the practitioner. Often a clinician resorts to such techniques when they have been unable to come to terms with the needs of their clients related to rates of change and autonomy of choice. They want something different, and in a different way, than their client wants.

Confrontation feels good to them, but rarely is productive to the goals of the professional relationship. It can actually be damaging and serve only to produce or repel dependency and transference. Take care if you find yourself feeling like a child or too much like a bad student in your relationship with those you hire to help you.

Here are some other questions for you as you go forward in developing your own pre-hiring interview.:

1. How much control can you exercise and how much do you want as your "treatment" goes forward?

2. How and when will you know when the professional you hire to partner with you in your care has stepped over any lines you do not want stepped over (i.e.: are they assuming too much control? Are they dictatorial as opposed to supportive?)

3. How much control do you want/need to give to your care professionals?

4. How will you communicate these kinds of needs in the relationship and when will that conversation start?

The Outlaw Catalog of Cagey Optimism

Culled from Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter

May 26, 2010

THE OUTLAW CATALOG OF CAGEY OPTIMISM

(The complete text is here: http://bit.ly/CageyOptimism)

Psychiatry and psychotherapy obsess on what's wrong with people and give short shrift to what's right. The manual of these professions is a 943-page textbook called the *DSM-IV.* It identifies scores of pathological states but no healthy ones.

Some time back, I began to complain about this fact, and asked readers to help me compile material for a proposed antidote, the Anti-DSM -- a compendium of healthy, exalted, positive states of being. As their entries came in, we at the Beauty and Truth Laboratory were inspired to dream up some of our own. Below is part one of our initial attempt at creating an *Anti-DSM-IV,* or as we also like to call it, "The Outlaw Catalog of Cagey Optimism."*

ACUTE FLUENCY. Happily immersed in artistic creation or scientific exploration; lost in a trance-like state of inventiveness that's both blissful and taxing; surrendered to a state of grace in which you're fully engaged in a productive, compelling, and delightful activity. The joy of this demanding, rewarding state is intensified by a sense that time has been suspended, and is rounder and deeper than usual. (Suggested by H. H. Holiday, who reports that extensive studies in this state have been done by Mihaly Cziscenmihaliy in his book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.)

AESTHETIC BLISS. Vividly experiencing the colors, textures, tones, scents, and rhythms of the world around you, creating a symbiotic intimacy that dissolves the psychological barriers between you and what you observe. (Suggested by Jeanne Grossetti.)

AGGRESSIVE SENSITIVITY. Animated by a strong determination to be receptive and empathetic.

ALIGNMENT WITH THE INFINITY OF THE MOMENT. Reveling in the liberating realization that we are all exactly where we need to be at all times, even if some of us are temporarily in the midst of trial or tribulation, and that human evolution is proceeding exactly as it should, even if we can't see the big picture of the puzzle that would clarify how all the pieces fit together perfectly. (Suggested by Meredith Jones.)

AUTONOMOUS NURTURING. Not waiting for someone to give you what you can give yourself. (Suggested by Shannen Davis.)

BASKING IN ELDER WISDOM. A state of expansive ripeness achieved through listening to the stories of elders. (Suggested by Annabelle Aavard.)

BIBLIOBLISS. Transported into states of transcendent pleasure while immersed in reading a favorite book. (Suggested by Catherine Kaikowska.)

BLASPHEMOUS REVERENCE. Acting on the knowledge that the most efficacious form of devotion to the Divine Wow is tinctured with playful or mischievous behavior that prevents the buildup of fanaticism.

BOO-DUH NATURE. Dwelling in the blithe understanding of the fact that worry is useless because most of what we worry about never happens. (Suggested by Timothy S. Wallace.)

COMIC INTROSPECTION. Being fully aware of your own foibles while still loving yourself tenderly and maintaining confidence in your ability to give your specific genius to the world. To paraphrase Alan Jones, Dean of Grace Cathedral: following the Byzantine ploys of your ego with compassion and humor as it tries to make itself the center of everything, even of its own suffering and struggle.

COMPASSIONATE DISCRIMINATION. Having astute judgment without being scornfully judgmental; seeing difficult truths about a situation or person without closing your heart or feeling superior. In the words of Alan Jones: having the ability "to smell a rat without allowing your ability to discern deception sour your vision of the glory and joy that is everyone's birthright."

CRAZED KINDNESS. Having frequent, overpowering urges to bestow gifts, disseminate inspiration, and perpetrate random acts of benevolence.

ECSTATIC GRATITUDE. Feeling genuine thankfulness with such resplendent intensity that you generate a surge of endorphins in your body and slip into a full-scale outbreak of euphoria.

EMANCIPATED SURRENDER. Letting go of an attachment without harboring resentment toward the stimuli that led to the necessity of letting go. (Suggested by Timothy S. Wallace.)

FRIENDLY SHOCK. Welcoming a surprise that will ultimately have benevolent effects.

HIGHWAY EQUANIMITY. Feeling serene, polite, and benevolent while driving in heavy traffic. (Suggested by Shannen Davis.)

HOLY LISTENING. Hearing the words of another human being as if they were a direct communication from the Divine Wow to you.

IMAGINATIVE TRUTH-TELLING. Conveying the truth of any specific situation from multiple angles, thereby mitigating the distortions that result from assuming the truth can be told from a single viewpoint.

IMPULSIVE LOVE SPREADING. Characterized by a fierce determination to never withhold well-deserved praise, inspirational encouragement, positive feedback, or loving thoughts; often includes a tendency to write love letters on the spur of the moment and on any medium, including napkins, grocery bags, and skin. (Suggested by Laurie Burton.)

INADVERTENT NATURE WORSHIP. Experiencing the rapture that comes from being outside for extended periods of time. (Suggested by Sue Carol Robinson.)

INGENIOUS INTIMACY. Having an ability to consistently create deep connections with other human beings, and to use the lush, reverential excitement stimulated by such exchanges to further deepen the connections. A well-crafted talent for dissolving your sense of separateness and enjoying the innocent exultation that erupts in the wake of the dissolution. (Suggested by Sue Carol Robinson.)

JOYFUL POIGNANCE. Feeling buoyantly joyful about the beauty and mystery of life while remaining aware of the sadness, injustices, wounds, and future fears that form the challenges in an examined life. (Suggested by Alka Bhargava.)

LATE LATE-BLOOMING. Having a capacity for growth spurts well into old age, long past the time that conventional wisdom says they're possible.

LEARNING DELIGHT. Experiencing the brain-reeling pleasure that comes from learning something new. (Suggested by Sue Carol Robinson.)

LUCID DREAM PATRIOTISM. A love of country rooted in the fact that it provides the ideal conditions for learning lucid dreaming. (Suggested by Kenneth Kelzer, author of *The Sun and the Shadow: My Experiment With Lucid Dreaming.*)

LYRICAL CONSONANCE. Experiencing the visceral yet also cerebral excitement that comes from listening to live music played impeccably by skilled musicians. (Suggested by Susan E. Nace.)

TO SEE THE REST OF THE EXALTED, POSITIVE STATES, GO HERE:http://bit.ly/CageyOptimism

On the True Nature of Forgiving

Forgiveness is a process not an event. An action not a pronouncement.

If you expect the words themselves to usher in a guilt free future for the perpetrator and a freedom from real and metaphoric nightmares for the victim, then you are expecting a four star meal at the MacDonald's window.

Letting go is something a victim can do without the cooperation of the perpetrator. While forgiveness is a cooperative venture and demands that the perpetrator asks for it.

Forgiveness for victims is icing on the cake of healing... but they can heal without it or, in some cases, they can learn to function in spite of the pain of what has been inflicted. Some wounds are permanent, physical, emotional and spiritual: to deny that is to offer too rosy a picture of what is possible in the real world.

For some victims letting go is a natural event that signals how the brain itself heals from trauma. Healing will happen without forgiveness, but may be sped along with it. To rely on it exclusively or to have greater expectations from it than it can deliver is the game of politicians and perpetrator denial.

Grief: A Normal and Natural Response to Loss

Most people who suffer a loss experience one or more of the following:

* Feel tightness in the throat or heaviness in the chest
* Feel thumping, erratic beats in the heart and are very aware of
heart actions
* Have an empty feeling in their stomach and loss (or gain) of
appetite
* Have pain and/or nausea in stomach
* Feel restless and look for activity, but have difficulty
concentrating
* Feel in a trance, want to just sit and stare
* Feel as though the loss isn't real, that it didn't actually
happen; (this may include trying to find the loved one)
* Feel light headed and dizzy often
* Sense the loved one's presence ( this may include expecting the
person to walk in the door at the usual time, or hearing his/her
voice, or seeing his/her face)
* Have headaches frequently
* Wander aimlessly, forget and don't finish things they've started
to do around the house
* Have difficulty sleeping, and have dreams or visions of their
loved one frequently
* Assume mannerisms or traits of the loved one
* Feel guilty or angry over things that happened or didn't happen in
the relationship

These are all normal grief responses.

You may also experience:

* Disbelief:
You expect to wake up any minute from this nightmare. It can't be
true. You can't cry, because you don't believe it.
* Shock:
Nature softens the blow, temporarily. You are numb and dazed. Your
emotions are frozen. You go through the motions, like a robot.
* Crying:
Deep emotions suddenly well up, seeking release as loud sobbing
and crying. Give yourself time for tears. They can help.
* Physical Symptoms:
You may sleep or eat too little or too much. You may have physical
aches, pains, numbness, or weakness. Check with a doctor to rule
out other causes. Usually the symptoms fade gradually.
* Denial:
You know the fact of death but you forget. You expect your loved
one to telephone or walk in the door. You search for him/her.
* Why:
"Why did he/she have to die?" You dont expect an answer, but you
need to ask repeatedly. The question itself is a cry of pain.
* Repeating:
Over and over again, you tell the same story, think the same
thoughts. Repeating helps you to absorb the painful reality.
* Self-Control:
You control your emotions to fulfill your responsibilities or to
rest from the pain. Self-control can shape and give rhythm to your
grieving, but constant rigid self-control can block healing.
* Reality:
"It really happened." You feel you're getting worse. Actually,
reality has just hit, and support from friends and family may be
diminishing.
* Confusion:
You can't think. You forget in mid-sentence. You are disorganized
and impatient.
* Idealizing:
You remember only good traits, as if your loved one was perfect.
You find it hard to accept the not-so-perfect living. Your loved
one's idiosyncracies or imperfect traits become endearing
reminders of their realness, humanness.
* Identifying:
Wanting to stay close, you copy your loved one's style of dress,
hobbies, interests, or habits. You may carry a special object of
his or hers.
* Envy:
You envy others. Their pleasure in their loved ones makes you feel
keenly what you have lost. They don't deserve their good fortune.
* Frustration:
Your past fulfillment's are gone. You haven't found new ones yet.
You feel you're not coping with grief "right."
* Bitterness:
Temporary feelings of resentment and hatred, especially toward
those in some way responsible for your loss, are natural. But,
habitual bitterness can drain energy and block healing.
* Waiting:
The struggle is over, but your zest has not returned. You are in
limbo, exhausted, uncertain. Life seems flat.
* Hope:
You believe you will get better. The good days out balance the
bad. Sometimes you can work effectively, enjoy activities, and
really care for others.
* Missing:
You never stop missing your loved one. Particular days, places,
and activities can bring back the pain as intensely as ever.
* Commitment:
You know you have a choice. Life won't be the same, but you decide
to actively begin building a new life for yourself.
* Seeking:
You take initiative, renewing your involvement with former friends
and activities, and exploring new involvements.
* Hanging On:
Some days you hang on to the grief, which is familiar. Letting go
is more a final good-bye to your loved one. You let go gradually.
* Peace:
You can reminisce about your loved one with a sense of peace. You
feel able to accept the death and face your own future.
* Life Opens Up:
Life has value and meaning again. You can enjoy, appreciate, and
anticipate events. You are willing to let the rest of your life be
all it can be.

This list is a gift to you from Survivors from both Orange and San Diego
County. It has been compiled for you by Connie Saindon, MA, MFT,CTS

Connie Saindon, MA, MFC14266 Self-Help & Psychology Magazine,
Trauma Department Editor


Copyright (c) 1994-1997 by Pioneer Development Resources, Inc.
All rights reserved.

Alice Miller, Author of "Drama of the Gifted Child" 1923-2010

I have recommended Miller's book "Drama of the Gifted Child" countless times in my work in grief and loss and other areas of my professional coaching, counseling and social work. I remember when I read it literally feeling a calm cool breeze come over me during some of the most deeply applicable sections. Many people have reported similarly moving and transformative emotions... some a bit difficult to traverse (a friend reports getting sick while he read it), but worthy of the voyage. The most moving and useful aspect lies in how she charges her readers to balance the righteous anger and rage they may feel toward those who hurt them as a child, with compassion and understanding: the adults who hurt you also had their own childhood traumas to bear and function in spite of.

April 26, 2010

Alice Miller, Psychoanalyst, Dies at 87; Laid Human Problems to Parental Acts

By WILLIAM GRIMES , The New York Times

Alice Miller, a psychoanalyst who repositioned the family as a locus of dysfunction with her theory that parental power and punishment lay at the root of nearly all human problems, died at her home in Provence on April 14. She was 87.

Her death was announced Friday by her German publisher, Suhrkamp Verlag.

Dr. Miller caused a sensation with the English publication in 1981 of her first book, “The Drama of the Gifted Child.” Originally titled “Prisoners of Childhood,” it 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, Dr. Miller contended, 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.

“The Drama of the Gifted Child” struck a chord with mental health professionals. “Clinically, she is almost as influential as R.D. Laing,” the British psychologist Oliver James told The Observer of London in 2005. “Alice Miller changed the way people thought.”

The book also stirred the general public, selling more than a million copies. Its central argument was easy to grasp and, for many readers, offered a tempting explanation for their sorrows and failures.

Dr. Miller is often credited with turning the attention of therapists to child abuse, both physical and sexual, but also with encouraging millions of adults to regard themselves as victims.
Daphne Merkin, assessing Dr. Miller’s book “The Truth Shall Set You Free” in The New York Times Book Review in 2002, wrote that Dr. Miller “could be said to be the missing link between Freud and Oprah, bringing news of the inner life, and especially the subtle hazards of emotional development, out of the cloistered offices of therapists and into a wider, user-friendly context.”

Dr. Miller further developed her ideas in two books published immediately after “The Drama of the Gifted Child’: “For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence” (1983) and “Thou Shalt Not Be Aware: Society’s Betrayal of the Child” (1984). She applied her theory of childhood development to explain the passivity of the German people in the face of Nazi tyranny and took aim at Freud, whose theories, she believed, cast parents as innocents and children as depraved.

Often she used prominent artists as her case studies. In “The Untouched Key” (1990), she held up Friedrich Nietzsche, Pablo Picasso, Kathe Kollwitz and Buster Keaton as illustrations of her theories. In “The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Cruel Parenting” (2005), she put Dostoyevsky, Proust and Joyce under the microscope.

Alice Miller was famously reclusive, and deliberately kept details of her early life sketchy. She was born in Lwow, Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine), on Jan. 12, 1923. She studied philosophy and literature at the University of Warsaw, which operated underground during the war.

After the war, a Swiss charity arranged for her to continue her studies at the University of Basel, where she wrote her dissertation on the neo-Kantian philosopher Heinrich Rickert and received a doctorate in 1953.

After undergoing Freudian psychiatric training in Zurich, she went into practice as an analyst. In the 1960s a wave of revisionism swept over the profession, as psychoanalysts adapted the ideas of Freud and Jung to social criticism.

Strongly influenced by the education writer Katharina Rutschky’s notion of “black pedagogy,” a term for the authoritarian style of German parenting, Dr. Miller came to view all forms of parental coercion, and even mild physical discipline or emotional coldness, as fatal to healthy psychic development. In her English books, the term is rendered as “poisonous pedagogy.”

“Humiliations, spankings and beatings, slaps in the face, betrayal, sexual exploitation, derision, neglect, etc. are all forms of mistreatment, because they injure the integrity and dignity of a child, even if their consequences are not visible right away,” she writes in an explanatory essay on childhood mistreatment and abuse on her Web site, alice-miller.com. “Beaten children very early on assimilate the violence they endured, which they may glorify and apply later as parents, in believing that they deserved the punishment and were beaten out of love.”

By the time she wrote her first book, published in German in 1979, Dr. Miller had stopped practicing psychiatry. The relationship of analyst to patient, she came to believe, replicated the insidious power relationship of parent to child. Her initial critique of Freud led to a full-scale break described in “Banished Knowledge: Facing Childhood Injuries” (1990), a semi-autobiographical work that revealed her own abuse as a child, which she discovered through paintings she created spontaneously.

“Not once did she apologize to me or express any kind of regret,” she later wrote of her mother in “The Body Never Lies.” “She was always ‘in the right.’ It was this attitude that made my childhood feel like a totalitarian regime.”

Having broken with Freud, Dr. Miller resigned from the International Psychoanalytic Association in 1988 and embraced a number of alternative therapies. She became a disciple of J. Konrad Stettbacher, an advocate of regression therapy, and expressed enthusiasm for Arthur Janov’s primal-scream approach, but soon rejected both. Over the years she became increasingly reclusive.

She is survived by a son and a daughter.

Uncompromising and often strident, Dr. Miller preached her message with an often messianic fervor and a polemical style of argument that cost her support from early admirers. The underlying precepts remained unchanged in later works like “Breaking Down the Wall of Silence” (1991) and “Free From Lies: Discovering Your True Needs” (2009).

Business Coaching Services

The following is a range of services I can offer your company. This list can be considered to be a menu of options. Options can be added as process continues and applications are determined. Prices are reached on a case by case basis determined by number of people involved in each session, service provided, and ability to invest. Flexibility and a creative approach to the combination of these services is a key to their successful implementation. Adding others is always an option.

* Visions and Goals: Initial planning session to determine direction of coaching, set goals and time tables for attaining those goals. For executives, managers and staff as determined and deemed necessary by managers. At least two hours. Can happen in several increments over the first month of coaching.

* Individual Executive and Manager Coaching: Individual session with executives or managers. Generally three-quarters to one hour long. Can be held at place of business, over the phone or in other community setting as requested by client.

* Individual staff coaching: Individual session with one staff per request by staff or in agreement with/request by manager. Can be held in place of business, over phone or in other community setting. Thirty minutes to an hour.

* Seminar: Didactic and/or skills training seminar for a work unit or large percentage of an entire staff. At least an hour; not usually more than three hours. In setting provided by company.

* Observation and Assessment: Information and process observation in the workplace. This is my opportunity to visit workplace during a normal day and observe. No less than one hour for observation. Includes report to managers and/ or staff as requested and needed at a later date; at least another hour.

* Facilitation and Mediation: Coaching for small sub groups of people involved in specific workplace problem-solving processes. Total number of hourly sessions to be determined on a case by case, issues by issue, as needed basis