12 step programs

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&nid=1002&grp=1206

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.