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Banished Knowledge: Facing Childhood Injuries Paperback – September 1, 1991

by Alice Miller (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 86 ratings
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From the author of the bestselling classic The Drama of the Gifted Child—a book that believes that children are inherently good and traces all forms of criminal deeds to past mistreatments.  

In direct opposition to the Freudian drive theory, "Alice Miller writes lucidly and passionately, asks daring questions and sees through conventions that most of us take for granted" (San Francisco Chronicle).
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    212 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Anchor
  4. Publication date
    September 1, 1991
  5. Dimensions
    5.24 x 0.49 x 7.97 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0385267622
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0385267625
  8. See all details
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The Amazon Book Review
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If, as a child, you were abused or neglected by someone you loved and trusted, it's likely you blamed yourself. To survive as an abused child, you struggled to forget the pain. But this tactic became a life-destroying force. It deadened your ability to feel, to be aware, to remember and, later, reemerged as unresolved rage, perhaps misdirected at your own children. You can halt that cycle and reclaim the truth about the abuse with this book. Miller's conviction--that it's only through feeling loved and cherished that cruelty can be recognized--provides a starting point for healing.

From the Publisher

In direct opposition to the Freudian drive theory, the author of the best-selling The Drama Of The Gifted Child believes that children, at birth, are inherently good, and she traces all forms of criminal deeds to past mistreatments.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Anchor; Reprint edition (September 1, 1991)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 212 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0385267622
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0385267625
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 5.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.24 x 0.49 x 7.97 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 86 ratings

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Alice Miller

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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
86 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Moon Cat
5.0 out of 5 stars Another excellent Book from Alice Miller
Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2022
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Highly recommend reading for parents and people who are struggling with their childhood memories. One of the often heard things is when someone realizes that they are acting exactly like their Parents in a way that they originally condemned. This is the book for you. In fact all Alice Miller's writings would be of great benefit. It addresses a child's need to forget what their Parents did to them that scared them, was unjust, was even abusive as they were dependent on them for survival. This forgetting doesn't go away after adulthood is reached but remains like a program running in the background until you have children. This book is valuable in changing the future of our species if enough people choose to deal with this repressed programing. My two favorite books by Alice Miller are "For Your Own Good" which eirely used the exact words my Father used, and "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware".
3 people found this helpful
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Michael Tsarion
5.0 out of 5 stars ONE OF THE WORLD GREATEST FEMALES
Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2015
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one of the best books by psychologist Alice Miller, whose ideas on child abuse are still considered taboo today. She was way ahead of her time, and all her books must be read and re-read.
15 people found this helpful
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pray_for_mojo
4.0 out of 5 stars A good starting point into Alice Miller's viewpoint
Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2014
This is the first Alice Miller book I read, and I think that it makes for a good place to start learning about her view on childhood and abuse. It appears to have been written at a point in Miller's life when she really started to cement her theories, and there is a lot of conviction and clarity to the writing. Miller pulls no punches and simply tries to lay out the facts as she sees them in a non-technical language. I did take one star off because the book could have used a bit more editing as there is some repetition, some parts are a bit too long winded, and some parts of the book read like diatribes against people Miller felt slighted by.

Another important thing to know about the book is that does not really offer any concrete solutions. If you suffered the types of abuses she speaks about, the closest you will get in this book to a path forward to healing is Miller's advocacy of "Primal Pain" work (or what John Bradshaw calls "Original Pain" work). Miller recommends the teachings of a Mr. Stettbacher, but she later recanted that recommendation because Stettbacher apparently made some fraudulent claims. I would personally recommend John Bradshaw's book "Homecoming" which includes many practical steps to doing some of this "Original Pain" work. I am still searching for more and better ways to accomplish this work, as much of my own childhood remains obscured to me.

But overall, there any many excellent pieces of truth in this book. This was my favorite, as I also had my needs shamed as child:

“(In the case of an abused child) every genuine need is overlaid with fear and leads to severe tension and self punishment instead of fulfillment so long as stored memories tell only of punishment rather than fulfillment. Such was also my own case. My mother saw my natural needs as tiresome demands. How could I, sent out into the world thus equipped, have had any inkling of what I really needed? How could I have learned to satisfy those needs? I learned that they were dangerous because the desire for satisfaction inevitably led to disaster. That disaster, the great threat, was my mother’s rage and my exposure to her lack of love. So I tried with all my might to suppress my needs for affection, warmth, and understanding to avoid having to see how my mother really felt about me and to maintain the illusion of her love. My hope was that if I needed nothing and sacrificed my life for others, surely I would eventually be given that love. But love cannot be earned. It is either given from birth, or it isn’t. I finally had to acknowledge that I had not received this gift as a child.”
13 people found this helpful
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Apollo Macgregor
5.0 out of 5 stars great read, great source
Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2016
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Alice Miller was a genius. Very insightful for those searching for why people abuse and can't see the wrong in their actions.
6 people found this helpful
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Andreja Sweeney
5.0 out of 5 stars like everything about it
Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2018
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I am still reading it, like everything about it.
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Daniel Mackler
3.0 out of 5 stars She Condemns Child Abusers But Not The Abuser Within Herself
Reviewed in the United States on December 16, 2006
No writer has had more of an impact on me than Alice Miller, but the more I grow, the more I realize her limits.

This book's strength is that Alice Miller understands and beautifully labels the devastating causes and effects of extreme child abuse. Its weakness is that she doesn't realize that these extreme cases are just the tip of the iceberg. And it's a big iceberg.

Although part of Alice Miller is most certainly enlightened, which explains why so much of her writing rings true, part of her remains clouded by denial. In Banished Knowledge her denial hinges on her false belief that she is fully enlightened. In the 1990 edition she repeatedly and confidently states that she has resolved all her own repressed traumas through the therapy method of J. Konrad Stettbacher.

Although this is patently untrue, it is convenient for her to believe because it protects her from her own buried pain. This allows her to radically underestimate the significance of the abuse she herself suffered in her own childhood - and she herself perpetrated on her own two children in her adulthood. After all, parents in any degree of denial cannot help but act out their repressed traumas onto their children, which by nature is abusive to the spirit of the child. This is the repetition compulsion which she herself so aptly elucidates in her other works. This is how I know Alice Miller abused her own children. I learned it by applying the best of her theory to herself.

Although she hints obliquely at her own abusiveness as a mother, her denial prevents her from looking it squarely in the eye...let alone studying her own shadow with the penetrating ferocity that made her famous. Thus, by extension she is unable to study the shadows of those like her, that is, the overwhelming majority of parents. She lets them off the hook the same way she lets herself off the hook.

This is why she tacitly grants non-enlightened parents her consent to procreate - despite it being an inherent recipe for abuse. And she certainly never says "don't have children!" She unconsciously recognizes that it would be hypocritical of her to condemn others for doing what she herself did - and is still unable to acknowledge having done.

No wonder Alice Miller has so many parents as followers. She is a safe leader - and certainly better than most. Although she does provide some enlightened guidance - which is why I was drawn to her in the first place and drank up her books for so long - at the same time she allows them to rest comfortably assured that she will never challenge their basic pathological motive for procreating.

Interestingly, a few years after writing Banished Knowledge, Alice Miller came to her senses and took the evolutionary step of publicly repudiating her idol Stettbacher as manipulative and destructive. In time she also came to acknowledge her own lack of full enlightenment.

Nevertheless, she still managed to find a way to protect her idealization of herself as a parent, and again, by extension, to give damaged people her tacit consent to procreate. She accomplished this by stating (in the last paragraph of the afterward of the 1997 edition of "Drama of the Gifted Child") that full inner healing is impossible and the desire to accomplish this is "hubris." Thus, if full healing is impossible, then some degree of repression and inner pathology is inevitable in everyone - and so, therefore is child abuse. And therefore she has no right to criticize it.

Wrong! The search to know oneself fully is not hubris! Terrifying, yes. Gutsy, yes. Overwhelming, at times, yes. And maybe even impossible for Alice Miller, given her advanced age, severe childhood history, and persistent rigidity.

But hubris for everyone: no! The real hubris is that Alice Miller so readily universalizes her own limited experience to all of humanity.

Here is the truth: Healing is possible. Full enlightenment is possible. And so is an end to all child abuse. Even mild child abuse.

And I guarantee that if Alice Miller were healthier she would be the first to agree.
29 people found this helpful
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Stuart M
5.0 out of 5 stars Review
Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2016
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Excellent book, showing that yes you can blame parents for how they raised their kids
6 people found this helpful
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Marianne D. Buddensiek
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on March 2, 2016
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All parents should read this, and understand how their behavior and actions affect their children
7 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Kate
5.0 out of 5 stars Open honest , very informative particularly for professionals working with children.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 11, 2019
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Another great book by Alice Miller , speaking openly and candidly about the long term impact of childhood abuse .
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Good Day Michal
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 28, 2015
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I am vry happy with the seller and the book - a must have whole collection Of alice work
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kate carty
4.0 out of 5 stars Direct and Honest
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 11, 2013
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I like Alice Millers honest and direct approach to childhood trauma and experiences, and the damaging impact they have on our vulnerable psyche.
She helps you accept your experience,understand what happened and why, then facilitate grieving and healing.
Use of her own experiences and those of her patients is helpful.
5 people found this helpful
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stacey
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 11, 2017
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Good
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R. Campani
3.0 out of 5 stars interesting
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 17, 2015
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a good read still not surviving time - psychology and surrounding disciplines keep developing and that's good.
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