Child Psychology

Overcoming Emotional Blindness and Finding Your True Adult Self

Drawing on the latest research on brain development, Miller speaks out against the increasing popularity of childhood corporal punishment and demonstrates how spanking and other disciplinary traumas are encoded in the brain, stunting our ability to overcome them. Our bodies retain memories of humiliation, causing panoply of physical ills and dangerous levels of denial. This denial, necessary for the child’s survival, leads to emotional blindness and finally 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, warns Miller.

In this stunning new contribution to her life’s work, Miller not only invites us to confront our own pasts, but reveals how each of us can liberate our present as adults and as parents.