An astoundingly moving and perceptive work on how adults can finally overcome the traumas of their childhood, "Free From Lies" is the culmination of a life devoted to healing others. Since "The Drama of the Gifted Child", no one has been more influential than Alice Miller in empowering adults whose lives were maimed emotionally and physically as children. Now she goes further, presenting theories that enhance communication and enable adults to express emotions that have been trapped for years. Practical and perceptive, Miller's work explains what can be expected from therapy, how to identify the causes of pain and why subconscious pain, unaddressed for decades, manifests itself later as depression, self-mutilation, primal inadequacy, and chronic loneliness. "Free from Lies" contains excerpts in which a mother learns how to communicate honestly, as well as a trove of Miller's answers to her thousands of readers.

About the Author

Alice Miller, a psychoanalyst and the author of thirteen books, lives in Switzerland. Also available: The Body Never Lies (ISBN 978 0 393 32863 9) and From Rage to Courage (ISBN 978 0 393 33789 1).

Reviews

Swiss psychoanalyst Miller (The Drama of the Gifted Child) continues to inveigh against parental abuse-with little fresh material or evidence to support her claims. She argues that nearly all children are abused (spankings, beatings, and sexual abuse are not differentiated) resulting in physical and mental illnesses and a danger that they might abuse their own children. She exhorts victims to challenge the lie that no abuse occurred and to acknowledge that they might never find idealized parental love. Most practical are her guidelines for choosing a psychoanalyst-but much of the book suffers from its lack of organization: responses to readers' letters appear without the original letters, an excerpted "Diary of a Mother" lacks an introduction, and the appendixes are unclear. Verdict: Cautiously recommended; Miller's reputation will elicit some demand.-Erica L. Foley, Clinton-Macomb P.L., Clinton Twp., MI Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

Free from Lies is a clarion call from one of the great psychological minds of our time.--Stephen Kamsi, Saybrook Graduate School, San Francisco