Post by Susan Peabody on Aug 13, 2024 18:12:27 GMT -8
Alice Miller
The legacy of a dysfunctional childhood, no matter when it happened or how serious it was, is painful emotions. Some of these emotions are from memory and some of them are from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or some other Mood Disorder.
Before recovery we do not always associate these emotions with the original trauma. After recovery begins, we see the connection and once we have the courage to change, we begin to process these emotions.
Many psychologists today do not believe in this. They prefer Cognitive Behavioral Therapy which is focusing or the patient’s current life. This did not work for me until I first did a few years of psychodynamics or looking at the past before wishing to shut the door on it.
Alice Miller, in the Drama of the Gifted Child, puts it this way:
“Experience has taught us that we have only one enduring weapon in our struggle against mental illness: the emotional discovery of the truth about the unique history our childhood.... In order to become whole, we must try, in a long process, to discover our own personal truth, a truth that may cause pain before giving us a new sphere of freedom. The damage done to us during our childhood cannot be undone, since we cannot change anything in our past. We can, however, change ourselves, [and] we become free by transforming ourselves from unaware victims of the past into responsible individuals in the present, who are aware of the past and are thus able to live with it.”
Once this is done, we can move on to working with a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist or a Life Coach and focus on what needs to be done to improve our life.
I went through this myself and I have documented the process. This work does not have to be done with a professional, but it does have to include an Enlightened Witness or Wounded Healer who really understands what you are going through and has a lot of compassion.