Returning to the themes of her classic Drama of the Gifted Child , the famed psychoanalyst examines the consequences of cruelty to children and offers ways we can heal our early psychic wounds. More than twenty years ago, a little-known Swiss psychoanalyst wrote a book that changed the way many people viewed themselves and their world. In simple but powerful prose, the deeply moving Drama of the Gifted Child showed how parents unconsciously form and deform the emotional lives of their children. Alice Miller's stories about the roots of suffering in childhood resonated with readers, and her book soon became a backlist best seller. In The Truth Will Set You Free Miller returns to the intensely personal tone and themes of her best-loved work. Only by embracing the truth of our past histories can any of us hope to be free of pain in the present, she argues. Miller uses vivid true stories to reveal the perils of early-childhood mistreatment and the dangers of mindless obedience to parental will. Drawing on the latest research on brain development, she shows how spanking and humiliation produce dangerous levels of denial, which leads in turn to emotional blindness and to mental barriers that cut off awareness and the ability to learn new ways of acting. If this cycle repeats itself, the grown child will perpetrate the same abuse on later generations--a message vitally important, especially given the increasing popularity of programs like Tough Love and of "child disciplinarians" like James Dobson. The Truth Will Set You Free will provoke and inform all readers who want to know Alice Miller's latest thinking on this important subject.

[德]愛麗絲·米勒 1923.01.12─2010.04.14

愛麗絲·米勒是一位以關注兒童早期心理創傷及其對成年生活影響而聞名世界的心理學傢。

她顛覆瞭傳統的兒童心理學觀點，提醒世人注意到父母對兒童的侵犯所帶來的影響，並在歐洲引起巨大共鳴。米勒齣生在波蘭猶太傢庭，第二次世界大戰期間在納粹的迫害中幸存，1946年獲得奬學金進入瑞士最古老的巴塞爾大學，1953年起陸續獲得哲學、心理學和社會學博士學位，並接受精神分析訓練。

米勒2010年辭世，享年87歲，留下許多膾炙人口的著作，為廣大讀者拓寬瞭看待兒童心理學的視野。