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No "Evil Genes"
Saturday August 18, 2007
Dear Alice and Barbara
After reading a readers mail from August 16, I will like to make a comment on the assumed link between behavior and genes. I will refer to the works of Jay Joseph, who have analyzed the claims of the geneticists about links to psychiatric disorders and behavior in general and their "research" that are supposed to back it up, from the foundation of the eugenics movement in the 19th century up until today.
Recent genetic molecular research have not identified genes for any psychiatric conditions nor for any wicked or antisocial behavior (which by the way often are categorized as psychiatric conditions). As the honest German psychiatric geneticist Peter Propping admits (2005): "Whereas genetically complex traits are being successfully pinned down to the molecular level in other fields of medicine, psychiatric genetics still awaits a major breakthrough" (Joseph 2006, p.221).
The claims of the connection between psychiatric conditions, (all sorts of) behavior, and genetics is therefor based in most part on family, twin, and adoption studies. As Joseph points out, they do not bring any evidence for genetic connections, since they all are plausibly explained on environmental grounds plus error.
As Joseph puts it in a letter to the editor of the American Journal of Psychiatry, criticizing an article by Kenneth Kendler (2005):
"Dr. Kendler noted that the "low" replication level for linkage findings "contrasts strikingly with the high level of consistency seen in the results of genetic epidemiologic studies�for example, the results of family and twin studies of schizophrenia" (p. 7). In fact, there is no "striking contrast" between these results if they are viewed as evidence supporting a purely environmental etiology for psychiatric disorders. Environmental theories predict 1) familial clustering, 2) a higher concordance of identical versus fraternal twins, and 3) a failure to find genes, and this is what we find". http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/162/1...
I will recommend the books of Jay Joseph, The Gene Illusion (2003) and The Missing Gene (2006). The books are described here: http://www.jayjoseph.net/GeneIllusion.html http://www.jayjoseph.net/MissingGene.html
Warmly, V. J.
AM: Thank you for your letter. We publish it for people who have not yet fully understood how the dynamic of child abuse works and how the myth of the bad child serves to take out the endured abuse on one�s own children. People who have understood this dynamic don't need any "scientific� proofs of this kind. They know that neither mental illness nor extreme cruelty come from bad genes. And they know WHY.
Seeing the parents as the problem
Saturday June 02, 2007
Among studies I've reviewed, this is a pearl, a jewel, a flower! :-)
To All, warmly, v. j.
A Novel Clinical Intervention for Severe Childhood Depression and Anxiety
VICKY FLORY
Australian Catholic University
ABSTRACT
A novel clinical intervention, Emotionally Attuned Parenting, was developed and trialed for severe childhood depression and anxiety. The intervention was designed to alleviate child psychopathology by improving quality of parenting. Parents of eleven children aged between 6 and 13 years who were outpatients in a public mental health service completed treatment. Parents received between 5 and 13 treatment sessions that aimed to increase parental empathy and improve emotional care of the child. T-test analyses revealed that the intervention was related to a significant reduction in psychiatric disorders, child-reported depression and anxiety, parenting stress, and a marginally significant reduction in child behaviour problems. Data available for five cases at 6 months follow-up indicated that gains were maintained. Implications of results for treatment of severe childhood psychiatric disorders and the role of parental empathy are explored.
AM: Of course, the parents are the problem and not the children. But nobody wants to understand that parents are not free to give their children emotional support as long as they are stuck in their fear of their own parents and don't dare to question their cruel behavior. Out of this fear, they repeat the cruelties they were subjected to in their own childhoods.
facts and pessimism / How reversible is the human brain?
Wednesday September 26, 2007
Dear Mrs Miller and Barbara,
like you I want to believe in our capacity to heal from previous abuse and therefore your first answer to the readersmail "Facts and Pessimism" was somewhat confusing to me.
You refer to neurobiologists like Martin Teicher and their research about the serious effects of child-abuse on brain development.
I follwed the link you gave in your answer and had a closer look at the article of Teicher.
Teicher: " These traumatic experiences can create permanent "memories" which shape the child's perception and responses to his environment. This adaptation can become a way of life that is difficult to change".
"Child-abuse can leave an indelible imprint on the structure and function of the brain. Such abuse, it seems, induces a cascade of molecular and neurobiological effects that irreversibly alter neural development".
"New brain imaging surveys and other experiments have shown that child-abuse can cause permanent damage to the neural structure and functioning of the developng brain itself".
"This means that the damage done to the brain by childhood mistreatment can no longer be regarded as basically a software problem amenable to reprogramming via therapy".
"Once the key brain alterations occur there may be no going back".
I am afraid that the conclusion of a permanent damage to the abused brain may lead to a depressing view of the serious emotional problems in us/abused people. Because in the case of an "irreversibly altered neural development" an essential part of our problem should be irreversibly physical and treatment may require more than a visit to the therapist to heal it, if it can be healed at all.
How does all this correspond with the hope that speaks out of your writings that we can really change?
Kind regards. W.
Barbara: We do not think that the damage done to the brain by childhood mistreatment cannot be changed. I don't know if Martin Teicher has experiences with and done research on effective therapy. It is clear that early childhood experiences form human brains and their development -- but that does not mean that we cannot reclaim our ability to feel, to question, to protest, to mourn and to liberate ourselves from the consequences of past mistreatment that used to determine our behavior and a defenseless, powerless, submissive, self-destructive and/or destructive way of life. We are convinced that effective therapy makes a difference. When I entered therapy I had hardly ever cried and no empathy for myself. But I regained that ability, claimed my right to feel and express all my feelings, including anger, and changed myself and my life profoundly. So I know that my brain had the capacity to undo what had been programmed into me when I was a child at the beginning of my life.
Hormonal imbalance due to fear?
Saturday August 25, 2007
Dear Alice, I read a book by Sue Gerhardt called ' Why Love Matters'. In it she writes about the link between mis-treatment as a child and later health problems in adulthood. She talks of how the specifics of the childhood environment produce characteristic illnesses. For example; children who have lived with fear and unpredictability develop a cortisol imbalance. This can be linked to chronic auto-immune diseases, such as arthritis.
I believe the root of my arthritis may lie in a long term adaptation to high cortisol levels.
Just as diabetes 2 is a result of an over-production of insulin causing the cells to become insensitive to insulin; could it not be the same with cortisol? How come arthritic symptoms abate when exposed to high cortisol?
I feel that my body lacks the ability to dampen down inflammation somehow.
I also believe the body is a work in process and that these things are not fixed. I had hay-fever from the age of 13 until 49 and then it just disappeared.
What do you think, could I be right?
Thank you, J.
AM: There is no any doubt to me that children who have lived with fear and unpredictability develop a cortisol imbalance. Children who are spanked in the first years of their lives develop MANY kinds of imbalances. But usually doctors try to combat this imbalance with drugs as Ritalin and others that are not at all harmless. Even if the parents of grown-up children could change and become loving, this would not change the mal-functioning of the body because the symptoms (like arthritis) keep imprisoned the never expressed rage of the once mistreated child. Only by experiencing these emotions and understanding the justified rage can we get away from the terrible pain. Medication "helps" only for a while and usually hinders the feelings to appear and the understanding to develop.
Diagnonsense
Monday August 20, 2007
Dear Alice Miller,
In January you answered a reader's mail called Mental illness and "supportive families" where you wrote: "[W]e have so many diagnostic labels that help to disguise the abuse. And this is exactly the reason why people MUST become severely ill: they are in a total isolation with their pain." I couldn't agree more!
The worst history of having been diagnosed I heard last week. It shows that diagnoses can even be worse than "just" character murder. I had a conversation with a woman I first was introduced to last year. Now she told me about her sister. Her sister had been sexually abused in her childhood. She had contact with professionals, who first labelled her with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, then Bipolar Disorder. After the second diagnosis she got treatment only for that one, her trauma history wasn't interesting. Later she got a third diagnosis: Dyssocial (Antisocial) Personality Disorder. The pain caused by this diagnosis became so intense, that the young woman (25) took her own life.
The sister gave me permission to use this story if I wanted. She said her sister definitely not was a "psychopath". She also said, knowing many people who had psychiatric experiences, that she was convinced that many have committed suicide because of getting a stigmatizing diagnosis. I'm sure she's right.
And why are the very few trauma-related diagnoses not "popular"? In an article from 1994, "Sex Bias in the Diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder" by Dana Becker and Sharon Lamb (in Professional Psychology: Research and Practice), social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists were asked to diagnose a client who had been sexually abused and had "symptoms" for both BPD and PTSD. BPD was rated higher than any other diagnosis. PTSD was the fourth highest rated.
How can anyone label such labelling "professional and adequate help"?
Yours sincerely,
S.T., Oslo, Norway
AM: Thank you for your important letter. I think that these are not exceptions and that many illnesses are PRODUCED by diagnoses, which conceal the true causes of the symptoms, and are treated with drugs that produce new symptoms. It is good that you write about and publish your letters wherever you can do it.
Karma and abuse
Saturday August 11, 2007
Hello,
What are your thoughts on Buddhism and karma? I experienced extreme physical and mental/emotional abuse by a step father which my mother condoned through silence. Also some minor sexual abuse by a relative. For some reason I'm only just admitting this to myself within the last year, although I have awful scars covering my legs from being beaten with extension cords and belts, somehow I managed to repress these memories until recently after I suffered a breakdown of sorts. As a woman, I don't have much confidence, although I'm learning to fake it until I gain it.
It's actually quite freeing to no longer feel crazy or act out neurotically, I realize I was under going much self deception in order to survive.
Now, at 29, I find myself going down this path of Buddhism and karma as a way to make sense of the abuse. Basicaly believing that my spirit chose this hardship as a way of compensating for past(lives) errors. My mind has to find a logical reason for the pain other than just blaming the abuser. He has little concern for me and calls his abuse of me "discipline." I make an effort to not think of him or my mother. While Buddhism is comforting to a degree, its austerity is harsh as you are told that you should be thankful for any insult or abuse because abusers are teachers and we deserve whatever we get--to put it bluntly.
As far as finding spiritual validation for the abuse , would you say that it is another form of denial? T.
AM: Yes, of course I would say that. It is not only denial, it is brain washing in the most dangerous way.
Barbara: The concept of karma is used by Buddhism to cover up responsibility for abuse, exploitation and mistreatment because a privileged life is presented as a "reward" for good deeds in "previous lives," and poverty, illness and misery are presented as the result of bad, even evil actions in "past lives." Colin Goldner and Michael Parenti describe in their essays "The Myth of Tibet" and "Friendly Fuedalism - The Tibet Myth" (both can be found on the Internet) how the ruling class of monks used the karma belief to keep the Tibetans subserviently in their place.
Schizophrenic families
Saturday August 04, 2007
Dear Alice,
I�m recovering child sexual abuse survivor and my primary perpetrator was my mother. I grew up in totally abusive, mistyfied, cultic, chaotic, rigid, violent, false and sick family � today I know this sad truth. Your books have helped me to see it. They helped me to feel it, and helped me to side with my inner child, against my opressors, both internal and external. Combined with therapies and support self help groups, this literature made me find my way of recovery. Thank U dear Alice�
I�ve recently read the Ronald G. Laing Book in which he describes 11 cases - families of so called schizophrenic persons. It seems to be true, what I�d been suspecting for log time: that these families are sick, and not the �sick� person who is only trying to deal with parental madness.
Somewhere I read there are two ways one can become insane: 1. being forced to believe things that are not real, and 2. being forbidden to believe things that really are real. It�s exactly what Laing research says about families of �schizophrenics.� Although he does not mention incest or other forms of sexual abuse (there was no incest awareness in the world in 50ties and 60ties of last century), I can feel sexual abuse underneath most of the cases he describes � I somehow �read,� through my experiences and today�s knowledge, the symptoms and the clues leading to CSA. I think the insane family dynamics is all the same in incest and in schizophrenics. And it is, exactly the same family dynamics I had been experiencing in my incestuous environment�
Incest was very strict taboo in my childhood (and adulthood since recovery). It was a kind of sub-reality, which no one was seeing, no one was confirming, and no one was mentioning, so, in order to survive and erease conflict with false, external family vision, I had to challenge my deepest, most painful reality. I had to negate my real experiences of abuse, and forget these feelings and these events. Instead of remembering and knowing the truth of what my mother had been doing to me � and the truth my father and grandma knew what was going on, but sided with my primal perp (I think they were so called latened pedophiles) � I had to believe lies about my family, they had been spreading: that they were loving me, caring about me, and if they had to punish me, it was either for my own good, or because I was intrinsically �bad.� So, both mentioned above ways to insanity were highly active in my life. I think it�s a kind of miracle I didn�t end up as chronic psychiatric patient, maybe because I had other ways of �coping� with my trauma � chemical use, sexual compulsions, risky behaviors, art, dissociation�
I gave up my coping strategies many years ago, and this was the moment the truth about sexual abuse started to surface. I couldn�t believe it, until I found � or met � what U, dear Alice, call �the enlightened witness:� your books, other books on recovery from incest, and shared experiences of other survivors I was talking with at my support groups (with therapies I hadn�t so much luck; I rather had to prove to therapists my memories are correct�wrrrrrrrr). I cannot overestimate all this support. Today I�m more of helping other survs, than in need of help for myself. And I�m generally happy.
I feel a lot of rage, also at psychiatric system that is forcing drugs on victims instead of hearing and seeing their symptoms. This rage and fury not only make me strong man � it make me SANE man. For the truth IS setting me free! And it does not matter, it hurts first�
Keep on, Dear Alice, in what U are doing, please� Thank U, U are! T.
AM: Thank you so much for your letter. I agree with everything you write. It is true that incest families have much in common with families of schizophrenics where it is forbidden to see the truth and demanded to believe in lies. Because families like that seem to be much more frequent than healthy ones, we have trouble to be heard when we write and say the truth. Almost everything Laing wrote was right, but psychiatrists of today hardly mention him. We must conclude perhaps that they also learned very early to deny their truth and are afraid of coming in touch with it. So instead of listening to the patients and their stories, they make them silent and even more confused by giving them drugs. Also, politicians, journalists, teachers seem to be very scared by memories of their own histories when we write about what we found out thanks to our feelings. I can only congratulate you that you could liberate yourself from this conspiracy of lies and make the experience that your life and above all your body feel healthier now. Do you know the story of the family FREYD that invented the FALSE MEMORY SYNDROM after their daughter talked about being sexually abused by her father? You will find Jennifer Freyd�s book on the Internet.
Mental illness and childhood trauma vs. biology
Wednesday January 24, 2007
Dear Dr. Miller,
I read several of your books when I was a teenager about 20 years ago, and they had a big influence on my thinking. More recently, my sister developed schizophrenia. It's a very clear case in terms of all the classic symptoms. Fortunately she has a lot of family support and the first medicine she tried (after a long prodromal phase and living with the illness untreated for a couple years) has controlled the delusions/paranoia/hallucinations/etc. with seemingly no side effects. Still it is a very difficult disease to live with, even with this amazing drug, because of the "negative" symptoms and residual "positive" symptoms she still experiences, because it has drastically changed the course of her life (as well as the family's), and because it is hard to find appropriate daily activities and social environments that encourage reintegration into society.
So, with that backgorund, my question to you is: Do you believe all mental illness is caused by childhood trauma, or do you allow that biological mechanisms are responsible for some illnesses, such as schizophrenia? Or perhaps mental illness symptoms can have multiple causes, just as one could have a heart problem due to lifestyle factors or for other reasons, such as a congential defect, but still experinece similar symptoms? I could see how depression, for example, could have more than one cause. From personal experience, I used to think depression was sort of a personal attitude, but then a few years ago I changed birth control pills for a month and it made me feel depressed in a way I never experienced before or since. This experience made believe some people might natually have these different hormone levels (or other factors) that cause, or make them more prone to, depression. And after experiencing the schizophrenia of my sister, it seems so obvious something got off track in her brain, a misfiring, if you will. It is hard to believe this was caused by childhood trauma. Her childhood may not have been absolutely perfect, but I don't think it was filled with trauma (definitely not violence or abuse). If childhood trauma were the cause of schizophrenia, it seems like there would be a lot more people with schizophrenia than 1-2% of the population. Also there does seem to be a genetic component.
Looking around online, it seems like you are portrayed as a member of the anti-psychaitry movement. It's hard for me to believe that you would take such an extreme stance and disregard other factors involved in the functioning of our brains. I'm curious what your thinking on this matter is. If you have already discussed this topic somewhere, could you point me to that?
I really look forward to your response and thank you for all your great work in educating people about the significance of child abuse in society and the fundamental importance of treating children with respect.
Sincerely, D.
AM: You have a very clear opinion about the causes of schizophrenia and about a non-traumatic childhood of your sister. So everything is okay. Why do you need then my agreement? I don't share your opinion, but it doesn't matter; we don't need to think in the same way.
Re: response to: Mental illness
Thursday January 25, 2007
Hi,
Thanks for your response to my question. I don't need your agreement; I was just wondering if you agreed or not and now I know! Since you asked a question in your answer, here's my response: I was expressing how I have made sense of my experience with schizophrenia and was curious if you agreed with it or not, and, if not, what you disagreed with and why. If you believe my sister was traumatized as a child, I was interested in hearing that. I would have considered the definition of trauma. But apparently you don't care to share your opinion on this matter at this time other than that you disagree with what I wrote. If you or your team can point me to any of your writings relevant to this topic, I would appreciate it.
-D.
AM: You are right to ask for more explanations but you will find them in my work and at least in the 21 points on the page "flyers". I can't repeat here what I have written in all my books and can't avoid being simplistically labeled as "antipsychiatric" by people who don't take the time to read and understand my work.
Concerning your sister I think that only SHE could say if and how she had to suffer in HER childhood if she had had a COMPASSIONATE WITNESS OF HER PAIN. As she obviously didn't have anyone, only her body knows her history, her mind can�t know it. It does everything it can to disguise it in symptoms because the painful truth is unbearable in isolation. However, it is only the truth that can heal. Now your sister has her illness, her medication and her family who sees the causes of her illness only in her genes. But she has also a sister who obviously wants to know more, fortunately.
Early onset Alzheimers and poisonous pedagogy
Saturday January 27, 2007
Dear Alice,
I have just read 'The Body Never Lies' and discovered many insights that go a long way to explain why I isolate myself, am beset by anxieties and basically loathe myself. My question though is about one of my siblings, a 55 year old woman who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease 1 year ago. This particular sister had 'special treatment' from my parents, I believe because she was very unsettled as an infant. She became my parents' scapegoat and remained so throughout childhood and into adult life. She was blamed for many things including my father's plunge into alcoholism. My mother often and openly referred to her as a horrible child 'who could never be satisfied' and repeated ad nauseam of how both parents would fill soda bottles with infant formula 'just to shut her up'. Alzheimer's has never presented, as far as is known, in any other family member. I was wondering if you believe that it is possible that this awful disease could result from cruel parenting?
Thank you for your wonderful book. I shall be seeking out your other works.
Kind Regards, C. F., Australia
AM: I don't have any doubt that Alzheimer is a flight from flashbacks of a painful childhood that come more frequently for older people because their resistance against remembering the truth is weakened by the advanced age. It is very helpful that you want to understand more.
Bio-medical scientists score higher in Autism-Spectrum traits
Sunday September 30, 2007
Dear Dr. Miller and Barbara,
I have been following the recent readers' mail exchanges about lesions in the brain. It seemed to me that "N." from Israel was concerned about the bogus attribution of psychological problems to hypothetical 'genetic predispositions', while the replies were about neurological deficits and lesions that occur after conception. "V. J." from Norway said that psychiatry is trying to heal the psyche and that somatic medicine is trying to heal the body. I don't think that's true for psychiatrists who belong to the American Psychiatric Association. See if you agree with me by visiting the APA website - http://psych.org - and examining the animated banner at the top of the page.
The slogan is "Member driven - Science based - Patient focused." I had to read it twice. At first I thought it said: "Money driven - Pseudoscience based - drug focused." But seriously, look at the images which appear in sequence at the side of the banner. To run through them again, refresh the page:
Picture 1. Two in medics in white coats and one in a surgical gown. Surgery for psychological distress? Wasn't the inventor of lobotomy, Egas Moniz, shot and left paralyzed by an ungrateful ex-patient?
Picture 2. Two clinicians examining a sheet of brain scans.
Picture 3. Four shiny, happy people. None of them look like members of the urban poor, who suffer the highest rates of psychiatric distress.
Picture 4. A woman in a white coat talking to two people in business suits. Probably it's supposed to portray relationship counselling, but it looks more like a management meeting in a corporate boardroom.
In the last few years newspapers have reported that an autism epidemic is underway. The cause could be thimerosal in child vaccines or other environmental toxins. But that would be a social and political problem. In "High Functioning Autism" there is no impairment of cognitive abilities and there are individuals with this diagnosis who have achieved outstanding success in scientific careers. In these cases the main symptom is "mindblindness" and a lack of empathy.
Autism researchers from a medical background are convinced that genetic factors are the cause. However, until the research which implicates genes is successfully replicated many times over, and can be used reliably to make predictions, it doesn't count as "hard science." Researchers who are eager to point the finger at genes seem to have forgotten the importance of replication. They make announcements to the press on the basis of unreplicated findings. It's shoddy science. I think it's much more likely that "mindblindness" and lack of empathy in idividuals who have "High Functioning Autism" are the result of unempathic parenting -- something which can happen equally in the childhoods of medical doctors and research scientists. The following article provides well sourced evidence that ALL bio-medical scientists and experimental psychologists tend to score higher in Autism-Spectrum traits than the population average:
http://robothink.blogspot.com/2005/10/empathy-deficit....
K. in England
AM: Thank you very much for your letter and the links. These texts explain very clearly why the discoveries of brain researchers made over the last years have not been used for a better understanding of the plight of the human being caused by experiencing FEAR early in life. To understand these connections we need to be in touch with our own emotions. If we are disconnected from them we are lacking empathy, for ourselves and for others, and our "discoveries" made only with the help of computers may remain fruitless ALTHOUGH THEY ARE SPECTACULAR AND COULD SAVE MILLIONS OF LIVES by reducing the global ignorance of spankers. Your much-telling links explain why MOST people TO THIS DAY (INCLUDING SCIENTISTS) still DON'T REALIZE that child abuse and the denial of its danger are nothing else than the effect of endured child abuse that left behind damage in the brain of the once spanked abusers.
Migraines and Fibromyalgia
Saturday September 29, 2007
Dear Ms. Alice Miller,
I cannot tell you enough how grateful I am that I had the privilege of reading your book "The Body Never Lies". I admire you for your bravery and courage to take on this battle against society. It has given me strength and motivation to face my fears.
I'm a 40 year old woman who was sexually, physically and psychologically abused by my father. For the past 20 years I have gone to priests, preachers, psychiatrist, psychologist, sexologists and counselors. I only need two more classes to finish my degree in psychology. BUT, it wasn't until last year that I signed up for a self-esteem course for women given by the town that I live in that I truly started to end the denial I was living in. Here is where I finally found the enlightened witness that I needed. I have now been, for the first time in my life, actually getting to the core of my problem. It is hard work, but well worth it.
You can't imagine what a relief it was for me to read that "forgiveness has never had a healing effect". I finally truly understood through your words that I DON"T have to forgive!!!! This is completely opposite what I was told I must do to get over my past. It was something that deep in the core of my soul I knew was not right for me, but I thought well if all these experts say this it must be true. Thanks for opening my eyes and letting me realize that I should have always listened to my body. I feel is as if my body has let out a big sigh of relief, someone understands me!
Although I feel better each day and I'm out of the hole I was in, I do still have to battle physical pain. In the past year my body pains from fibromyalgia and migraines have greatly lessened, but they have not gone away.Although I feel better each day and I'm out of the hole I was in, I do still have to battle physical pain. In the past year my body pains from fibromyalgia and migraines have greatly lessened, but they have not gone away. I also have a sharp stabbing sensation in my sternum that they can't seem to find any causes for it. Deep down I believe that I can cure myself once I completely rid myself of all the poison from my past that has been slowly killing me. I guess my question to you (as an authority figure on this subject and I person I highly respect) is if it is possible for the physical pain and deterioration of my body to be cured? This is very important for me to know because I don't want to have false expectations if it is something I should just learn to live with.
I greatly appreciated you taking the time to read my letter and would be forever grateful to recieve an answer from you.
Thanks from the bottom of my heart, T.
AM: You write: �Although I feel better each day and I'm out of the hole I was in, I do still have to battle physical pain. In the past year my body pains from fibromyalgia and migraines have greatly lessened, but they have not gone away.� Why don't you trust your body that it can do more if you don't leave the right path you have dared to find? The pains may tell you that there is still much more cruelty you had to endure that you will have to face. You need time for doing this. One year might be not enough to fathom what you had to suffer over so many years. But I don't doubt that you will succeed to live without corporal pain once you give up fully the denial. Be patient, it takes time, sometimes much time. Fibromyalgia is a very cruel illness, as cruel as your parents' emotional cruelty that you may be afraid to see and feel since your earliest childhood.
http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibromialgia
All child abuse causes brain damage
Thursday September 27, 2007
All child abuse causes brain damage
Dear Alice and Barbara!
I have some comments on the recent reader's mail issue, lesions in the brain caused by child abuse (sorry about my poor English).
The dualistic approach for healing has been shown to be harmful: Psychiatry trying to heal the psyche and the somatic medicine is trying to heal the body � isolated - leads to to misunderstanding of what it IS to be a human being. The incorrect treatment that follows leads to re-victimization as shown by the research of the the Norwegian professor of medicine Anna Luise Kirkengen (even though the doctors often evaluate their therapy to be a success!).
As numerous studies show, we are all very much programmed by the early care we receive and we even sometimes repeat it in a photographic manner even if we do not have any recollection of it. A study found that abused children that did not have the recollection of abuse replicated scenes from when they where abused through their play. The scenes matched exactly the video material recorded by the abusing babysitter (ref.: J. Herman 1992). And a compelling cross-fostering study from our cousin the rhesus monkey shows that while 60% of very early abused monkey babies abuse their own children when they grow up, non - 0%! - of the non abused monkey babies abuse their offspring as adults (Maestripieri 2005). Even if we have no recollection of abuse or the opposite - empathic treatment - it will come out one way or the other, most often the same way as received. It is stored in our bodies, and our brains are part of our bodies (at least last time I checked).
Knowledge about connections are essential even if we don't see the value of it right away, but of course lot of therapists follows a recipe so that they will have to block out disturbing new evidence. And a very important point is honesty to the patients. A patient has the right to know about himself, and to decide for himself what to do about the information (The brother of a former girlfriend of mine died of blood cancer, but did not know what was wrong with him until his last weeks. The doctors just didn't think that the information would do him any good (sic!!!)). The main answer to WHY we must include lesions in the brain in the picture of child abuse is however: nothing is "just psychological".
Since Douglas Bremner in 1995 scanned the brains people with PTSD, the evidence for lesions in the brain caused by child abuse and neglect has piled up (Bremner is one of reasons that traumatized people is taken more serious today than 20 years ago, and is currently working for the ACE study, as far as I know). A lot of areas in the brain seem to be affected, among them the area called hippocampus (where the hippos live in the summer?) and amygdala (a princess from a sci-fi film?).
Studies by Bremner, Vermetten and collegues has shown lesions in the brains of people with PTSD due to child abuse shows a reduction in hippocampal size in the range of about 12% to 19% (Bremner et al. 1997 & 2003) We find the same in people with so called borderline personality disorder (which is just an insulting name for people traumatized as children). Driessen et al. 2000 finds that the patients with BPD had nearly 16% smaller volumes of the hippocampus and 8% smaller volumes of the amygdala than the controls. If we look at the brains of people with DID (dissociative identity disorder), we find even greater lesions. Vermetten and colleges' recent findings (2006) shows hippocampal volume to be 19.2% smaller and amygdalar volume 31.6% smaller in the patients with DID, compared to the "healthy subjects" (they were probably not "healthy" since most people have endured some form of "subtle" abuse (see below) indicating even worse lesions in the brains of the people with PTSD, "BPD" and DID). And as the people with PTSD and "BPD" have been severely abused, the people with DID have endured even worse abuse (Lewis et al.1997). We seem to have a dose response connection (the more, the worse) between the degree of abuse and the degree of damage to the brain; strong evidence of causality.
A dose response relationship between abuse and psychological damage is even better established, but a lot of researchers and people in general argue argue for a threshold model. They hope and pray that if only the abuse is not so severe or not so regular, the child will be undamaged. However, studies that are designed to control for this finds support for a linear, but not a threshold model: all abuse have an impact!
The CIC study (Children in the Community) from New York is very interesting. This is a prospective longitudinal study that have followed children and their families for over 30 years. In some of the about 150 papers produced by this project, the researchers look for more subtle forms of maltreatment, and a linear dose respons pattern is strongly supported over the 23 parameters of "maladaptive parental behavior" (Johnson et al.2001).
It could also be worth mentioning that studies on animals have found that early adversities, for instance repeated maternal separation, have a lasting damaging impact on hippocampus through increased production of cortisol or increased sensibility to cortisol (Anderson & Teicher 2004, Mirescu et al.2004).
Alarming raises in cortisol has also been found in 15 month young children (Ahnert et al. 2004), regularly separated by being sent to kindergarten (a very common form of child abuse in Scandinavia). And a study of Daphne Bugental with colleges from 2003, found maternal emotional withdrawal (as a control tactic) and emotional unavailability (due to depression) to produce similar high levels of cortisol in infants below 1 year known to produce lesions in the hippocampus (hippo campus is not a jolly place for all!).
Summary: Abuse/neglect causes lesions in the brain. As the abuse/neglect get worse the emotional impact get worse. There is no threshold for emotional impact, and since all emotions have physical correlations a threshold for physical damage is unlikely to exist. It has been shown that a result of both severe and "subtle" abuse is increased levels of cortisol. Prolonged increased levels of cortisol has demonstrated to produce lesions in the brain.
Conclusion: There is little doubt that all unemphatic treatment of children have both immediate and lasting impacts. Abuse does just not go away. It causes lasting damage to the brain. Blocking out this information is totally irrational but understandable out of being av victim of child abuse ourselves.
Warmly, V. J., Norway
AM: Thank you very much for your clear letter and the important information it contains. Probably it was your courage to see your own parents that gave you the capacity to understand more than some scientists can who never came in touch with their feelings. They can write about irreversible damages in brain without having the knowledge of successful therapies. In fact, the big majority of the world population absolutely confirms their beliefs that the damage caused by child abuse can't be cured - if they refuse to work on it in therapy. On the other hand, we can see in this mailbox that there are people who could overcome their fear and got rid of their symptoms by daring to see what their parents had done to them and to rebel against cruelty and injustices endured in their childhood.
Barbara: Thank you very much for the important information. Filled with fear early on, people learn to deny what they feel and not to be aware of the reality of their childhood experiences. This fear produces society's ignorance that the abuse and neglect of children will affect their development and health. It keeps people caught in denial, silence and the vicious cycle of passing on physical, emotional and sexual violence.
the danger of AA
Friday November 23, 2007
Dear Alice,
I have been in therapy for over 2 years now. And it was at the suggestion of my therapist that I have read a number of your books and have by myself looked at your website.
The most recent article I read on your site was to do with spirituality and AA by a Barbara Rogers....I assume since this article was on your web page that you support her views.
After reading what she had written I felt somewhat confused as at one point not long ago I decided to go to an Alanon meeting. I went into this meeting, but such rage rose in me that I had to leave. Having been 'abused' at the hands of some members of the Catholic church, which I was a member when I was a little child, I suppose was at the center of this rage. What confused me was that I had asked my therapist what he thought about my attending an Alanon meeting and he had said, "it probably wouldn't hurt". After reading Barbara Roger's article I felt confused thinking if my therapist supports your views how could he say that my going to an Alanon meeting wouldn't hurt?
I'd be interested to hear your response to the above.
thank you, t.
AM: I agree with everything that Barbara wrote about AA, and I have also written many times about the dangers of this kind of manipulation, hypocrisy, poisonous pedagogy and confusion. You see that you felt the negative influence of this "treatment" as you write: �I went into this meeting, but such rage rose in me that I had to leave.� Your rage is understandable and if your therapist regards it as harmless, he may no longer be the right therapist for you.
12 step programs
Tuesday March 06, 2007
Dear Alice,
If I may ask, what is your opposition to 12 step program? I apologize if I have missed where you may have covered this question already.
thank you, lg
From the team: The following link leads to an exchange with a reader, where Alice Miller expressed her criticism of the 12 step philosophy:
Title "Illusions disguised as spirituality"
Published: Thursday December 21, 2006
Link: http://www.alice-miller.com/readersmail_en.php?lang=en...
Thank you for your response. I am still not quite sure I understand very well. Are you saying that the 12 step program for ACA's places the burden on the ACA to recover? And that "recovery" outside of the 12 step program is impeded because it does not allow for impedes the ability to "feel" honestly the injustices and abuse endured in childhood?
Also, may I ask what view you have of "God"?
Thank you again. LG
AM: In my understanding, we can liberate ourselves from the effects of cruel parenting if we become free to feel our own authentic feelings, whatever they might tell us. But if our goal is to become loving and forgiving persons, loved by the Higher Power, we are obliged to cultivate the denial of our reality, which we learned to do well as children, ignoring that it was exactly this denial that made us sick from the start.
