{"id":67,"date":"2015-01-01T13:00:20","date_gmt":"2015-01-01T12:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alice-miller.com\/en\/?p=67"},"modified":"2015-09-11T14:45:29","modified_gmt":"2015-09-11T13:45:29","slug":"how-is-emotional-blindness-created","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.alice-miller.com\/en\/how-is-emotional-blindness-created\/","title":{"rendered":"How is Emotional Blindness Created ?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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by Alice Miller<\/b><\/p>\n

How is Emotional Blindness Created ?<\/h1>\n

21 points<\/h2>\n
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  1. The newborn child is always innocent.<\/li>\n
  2. Each child needs among other things: care, protection, security, warmth, skin contact, touching, caressing, and tenderness.<\/li>\n
  3. These needs are seldom sufficiently fulfilled; in fact, they are often exploited by adults for their own ends (trauma of child abuse).<\/li>\n
  4. Child abuse has lifelong effects.<\/li>\n
  5. Society takes the side of the adult and blames the child for what has been done to him or her.<\/li>\n
  6. The victimization of the child has historically been denied and is still being denied, even today.<\/li>\n
  7. This denial has made it possible for society to ignore the devastating effects of the victimization of the child for such a long time.<\/li>\n
  8. The child, when betrayed by society, has no choice but to repress the trauma and to idealize the abuser.<\/li>\n
  9. Repression leads to neuroses, psychoses, psychosomatic disorders, and delinquency.<\/li>\n
  10. In neuroses, the child’s needs are repressed and\/or denied; instead, feelings of guilt are experienced.<\/li>\n
  11. In psychoses, the mistreatment is transformed into a disguised illusory version (madness).<\/li>\n
  12. In psychosomatic disorders, the pain of mistreatment is felt but the actual origins are concealed.<\/li>\n
  13. In delinquency, the confusion, seduction, and mistreatment of childhood are acted out again and again.<\/li>\n
  14. The therapeutic process can be successful only if it is based on uncovering the truth about the patient’s childhood instead of denying that reality.<\/li>\n
  15. The psychoanalytic theory of “infantile sexuality” actually protects the parent and reinforces society’s blindness.<\/li>\n
  16. Fantasies always serve to conceal or minimize unbearable childhood reality for the sake of the child’s survival; therefore, the so-called invented trauma is a less harmful version of the real, repressed one.<\/li>\n
  17. The fantasies expressed in literature, art, fairy tales, and dreams often unconsciously convey early childhood experiences in a symbolic way.<\/li>\n
  18. This symbolic testimony is tolerated in our culture thanks to society’s chronic ignorance of the truth concerning childhood; if the import of these fantasies were understood, they would be rejected.<\/li>\n
  19. A past crime cannot be undone by our understanding of the perpetrator’s blindness and unfulfilled needs.<\/li>\n
  20. New crimes, however, can be prevented, if the victims begin to see and be aware of what has been done to them.<\/li>\n
  21. Therefore, the reports of victims will be able to bring about more awareness, consciousness, and sense of responsibility in society at large.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    www.alice-miller.com
    \n\u00a9 2015 Alice Miller<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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