She Was In Talk Therapy For Decades, Never Got Better: She Had To "Diagnose" What She Had, Then Invent A Healing Modality. Now She Helps Thousands Get Out Of The Trap
She Was In Talk Therapy For Decades, Never Got Better: She Had To "Diagnose" What She Had, Then Invent A Healing Modality. Now She Helps Thousands Get Out Of The Trap
Coincidentally at this moment I am listening to a live webinar by Anna that Hay House is offering to everyone who bought her new book. That tickling story is horrifying. How disrespectful! That illustrates my observation that too many people who go into healing work haven't done enough of their own.
It is an unfortunate fact that there are many people in the psych profession who only went into it because someone told them they had a MH diagnosis, and they wanted to check that out for themselves.
Once a male therapist described to me how to give a proper blow job, no kidding. Considering my family psychopathology it was so astounding it actually brought me some clarity. The real tragedy is the psychological community generally plays right into the very reasons most people seek therapy, looking for a champion, someone who believes them and in them, and stands with them. Instead we’re nullified and reminded to respect authority (honor they mother and father) the very hierarchical menaces authority figures that seek to control and abuse us. It’s monstrous.
"Instead we’re nullified and reminded to respect authority (honor they mother and father) the very hierarchical menaces authority figures that seek to control and abuse us. It’s monstrous."
this is unprofessional and abusive. Was this a church sponsored therapist? I think the newer crop of talk therapists have been taught techniques of conversation unknown before, and it might be worth another shot.
I tried a “new age” mostly out of curiosity. She told me on my first visit I had a “personality disorder” and gave me a pile of xerox copies to read. I thought, wow the newest spawn of idiots. After that I gave up the possibility of “therapy”. My notion that we’re all in this alone was once again reinforced.
I also got livid when people did that to me when I was younger. Does ANYONE like it? And yeah, there is something gross about it - that when you say stop, they don't?
@Celia-farber, thank you for covering my work! It’s great to meet you. Maybe we can chat sometime. You have definitely picked up things I refrain from saying plainly (YouTube and all).
And to all the people who thought this post is about Alice Miller, I’m not Alice Miller.
Anna, I just expressed in a comment above how excited I was to see you comment and how much it means to me. Wow and thank you for taking the time!
I think I larded on too much Alice Miller, at the end, before posting the post and I usually explain that she has been thrown into a dark light by her son but I didn't this time.
Everybody, please hear me here:
I take Miller as a writer, not a "healer. "I quote her words, on the page, not invoking her as a healing therapist.
The post is about Anna. I will delete, perhaps, the Alice Miller because it caused some distraction.
God bless you and your work Anna, I am so happy I finally got on the right train with all this. I think you're part of a very hopeful movement in trauma recovery that actually works.
But you knew very little about Alice Miller until I told you. It was my post that alerted everyone to her abuse scandals with her son. This was all public. How did anyone miss it? Lots about this on the internet.
It's really about letting go for your own sake, isn't it! It always reminds me of that quote, "resentment is like eating poison and expecting the other person to die."
Well, I have read several hundred books and papers on the same topic since reading Alice Miller. And I think there are many authors whose work out-ranks hers.
Kinda like I always was interested in Alice Munro's writing, but found out she was married to a pedophile who abused her own daughter, and she stayed with him....
Alice Munro was one of our iconic Canadian writers.
I am not sure what to make of those stories. They could well be true. Or perhaps not. I think of the False Memory Syndrome of the 90s. The stories did not come out until after Alice's death, so we do not know what her opinion or defence was.
On the other hand, Alice Miller admitted the abuse against her son.
I would be a bit careful with Alice Miller. Some controversies there with her own son, Martin Miller. Rather like the controversial nature of Bruno Bettelheim having been overlooked by his readers too.
I read her Gifted Child book in my student years, though I cannot say it was anything more than a description of what happened in dysfunctional family systems. I did not find it healing.
I think her work is over-rated. She failed to heal herself, and passed on the trauma as a parent to her own son. She was always far too simplistic.
I did find her books helpful at the time someone referred them to me. But I agree, she was hardly a role model. I’m curious re the books you found helpful, can you recommend a few ?
I can picture her imitating Rodney Dangerfield's voice, saying "no respect, just can't get no respect!"
I mean, everyone ALWAYS leaves out Arendt.
.....I do hope that you'll forgive me taking liberties with my bit of gently respectful teasing; it was too difficult to resist, I was overcome by a fit of whimsy and momentarily not myself. ;-)
Ted....you should know me better than that! I did not leave out Hannah Arendt 😁. Go back to the original Sept, 20 postings and the Rufo Substack. I added another post on the Chris Rufo site with what I considered the more challenging material. Hannah Arendt included. I could have added another hundred titles to cover everything. But very few will read any book these days. So I do not bother now.
Nancy here was asking for the introductory material, as far as I knew. So I offered that and left the rest. She can come back to me after she has polished off my initial list.
"Ted....you should know me better than that! I did not leave out Hannah Arendt 😁. "
I will interpret that as a "yes, you're forgiven, but just this once," A.
I certainly will track back, and I'm greatly relieved that you didn't leave her out, after all. I was SO disappointed at the mere suspicion that poor ol' Hannah "gets no respect."
Note to self: get a new copy of "Origins," that tattered old copy is falling apart, and one day you won't be able to find the pages that keep falling out.
A digression; we can probably consider that Arendt/Dangerfield juxtaposition as a Rorshach test of uncertain virtue.
By the way, I'm not "stalking" you" through the 'stacks, merely pleased and rather delighted at once again crossing paths with a keen mind that places compassion highly within the hierarchy of priorities. Seems rather an outlier, these days.
Jean Liedloff, Joseph Chilton Pearce, Alice Miller, Bruno Bettelheim, Carlos Castaneda, Laurens van der Post -- you have to be careful with these utopian authors. Similar to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. They were giving readers what they wanted to hear at the time. Not necessarily the truth or the full truth. They may not even have known what that was. Castaneda and VDP were downright frauds
I can’t find Management of Reality”. Can you post a link. Thank you for posting authors who are not worthy, I’m interested in those who are. Also, I think Millers contribution was that she outed the entire psychological community for the frauds they were/are. Also, after reading all her books I finally realized why I couldn’t figure out what happened to me … it was because my mother in particular was mentally ill. It’s impossible for a child to digest a situation that makes no sense and it took me 60 years to realize. So Miller may have been a fraud and a terrible mother she did help me, figure that.
F. Gil-White right up my proverbial alley. I will definitely look at your recommendations. Thank you. See how this works, by Celia posting the Miller quote I find you and a list of kindred spirits. Hallelujah to all us free thinkers.
Celia did not have much to so with it. I don't think she understands or is interested in half of this material. And shows zero gratitude. I have contributed great heaps to her site. No longer.
Too bad. She was one of the few to expose the AIDS horror and became more visible when Fauci replayed his game during Covid (isolation lies and deadly drugs). Otherwise she seems to be struggling with her own demons, as are we all. She’s willing to put it all out there. Childhood trauma and abuse takes many forms. Also, your recommendations require a keen intelligence, progressive education. Some of the names I recognize and they require a lot to read and understand, a few I’ve tried. I’ll definitely check them all out (I made a list) but I’m not much of a student. I’m a plodder and operate on instinct and experience and something else undefinable. I’m just not much of an intellectual and it’s likely Celia is like me in some ways ! Also I stopped taking too much seriously on line, certainly not personally. Many comments are authentic and heartfelt but just as many just plain stupid…
As an aside, funny that you include a quote from therapist/writer Alice Miller...who I once respected. That was until I learned that she abused her own child.
Gleaned from internet:
"Outwardly, Alice Miller stood for the empathetic and non-violent education of children, thereby becoming a star of pedagogy. Her own son [Martin Miller] came to know a very different woman. The book, which he now has written at the age of 63, is not an accusation. But rather the attempt to understand deeply ingrained traumas.
The book is called
The True “Drama of the Gifted Child”: The Phantom Alice Miller"
My husband does deeply good work with his clients, helping them heal trauma at its root cause, whether in this lifetime or a past one. He came to do the work because of a leukemia diagnosis 20 years ago, which sent him to the physical, then mental, and finally spiritual dimension.
He always says that clients show up to work with him "when they've suffered enough," meaning that they've exhausted all the more traditional approaches. It takes courage to do the work necessary to heal -- it's not easy, and it's not comfortable. Most are not willing to step into the fire of transformation.
That is what I have been saying here, there and everywhere. The information is available. But the majority of people are not willing to do what it takes.
Their choice. Until they hit rock bottom and there is no wiggle-room left.
Trauma in the world today? I have been discussing that in my posts on several platforms, for years. Not many responses. And very few will do the reading. I have formal expertise in totalitarianism...but it gets overlooked. I used to share it freely. Think I will stop.
I just deleted about a dozen informative posts on Celia's earlier Substack today, because there was so little interest. Even from Celia. Who I had been led to believe did have interest. Uh-huh....
My conclusions? Most people do not REALLY want the answers....if this means they must stretch themselves. They just want a sounding board for sympathy. And then it stops there.
Very few are willing to do the actual work required. I am disappointed in human nature. Maybe God is too. Though I am not overtly religious. Perhaps that is what he is trying to get across.
People with certain forms of C-PTSD only read electronic texts sometimes and other times don't so it appears they (we) are not interested but it's that we were in the disconnect mode and stopped following a thread. It can be some kind of fear that came in, anything at all. I wish you wouldn't feel the need to delete anything. I often come back and catch up later when I have disassociated from a comments thread.
Anna Runkle is here! She, with characteristic connectedness (healed from disassociation) let me know, let us know, she got the post, she read it, and she appreciated it. I'm not start struck but I am happy!
Celia, you have told me your side. Now let me tell you my side.
I realized this larger dimension of life when I was a girl. I asked questions even then such as the cause of the collective madness in 1930s Germany. And I read very widely to find answers. Then I put in a long and grueling university career. Which I paid for myself by working menial jobs. No support other than my own.
And along the way, I experienced personal totalitarianism. To which I lost everything I had.
Still, I have spent quite a number of years freely offering my expertise as a researcher/writer on several platforms. In the name of humanitarianism. I have not been paid a penny. In the early years pre-COVID, I was soundly mocked. By the fools out there. Then I called Mass Formation long before Mattias Desmet did...once COVID insanity hit. And yet Mattias was the star because he made podcasts.
I answer and assist people as if I am invoicing $300 hr. All out of the goodness of my heart, and the expensive education I paid for in every way. Plus the bone-rattling experience I went through for many years. Did I mention I read prolifically, and pass on the suggestions and reviews? Even though there are few other readers out there these days.
So please understand things from my point of view for once. I would be hosting Substack subscribers myself, apart from the fact that there are a few sticky points there.
No more excuses, please. Have a bit more empathy and gratitude, Celia, for someone who has made many, many informed contributions to your site! You are not entertaining me....I am informing YOU! You are going to need to do better showing people like me some appreciation.
Actually, I have now cancelled my subscription as of next week.
Do you remember that quote that goes something like “sometimes when you look into the abyss the abyss looks back at you”? I think that explains why your comment was weird.
If you don’t like my comments, just don’t read. Also, English is not my first language. I commit some ungrammaricalities sometimes. Sorry!
You can also block me. I invite you to block me. You may feel better. Go to my profile page by clicking on my ever changing moniker, and search below the picture the three dots, and click that to open a menu, in which, among many other options, you have the option to block, which works differently from mute, but that’s besides the point.
You don't offer much, in whatever language. Except your insults.
I think you are envious, Roger. I get envy-vibes from you. Just like Celia, when you two cannot cope with another commenter here and the fact that they out-do you....you find some leaky excuse for your behaviour.
It's quite transparent. Sometimes I giggle over this. Other times I have reached my annoyance peak. Today, I reached my annoyance peak. Dear Celia could not even offer me a thank you for all the accurate and interesting contributions I have made to her site over time.
I’m very interested. Please share your most edifying readings with me. Miller came as close to helping me understand as anyone. Perhaps I was looking in the wrong place.
Celia that's a lovely post thank you. I commented thus on Anna Runkle's video:
"Excellent thank you. I'm still working on reinventing myself so as to earn good money again, but all else is good for me now, and your guidance is very wise, because you have lived it.
'It' is work of the soul IMHO/experience. I've lived the trauma-informed rebirth too (as I often frame 'it'), although differently because I'm a man, and my particular traumas were rooted in believing I was responsible for putting others before myself (from very early childhood) which then meant that my response to losing my partner to suicide was that I should end suicide globally. I seriously believed it was my responsibility and purpose to do that. Anyway, long stories.
Emotional growth hurts, and that's why we need to stay in charge; to do what we need to learn that we deserve self-love, self-forgiveness, and then to practice these things and more.
Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration helped me a lot - to understand the point of the pain; that we grow because of our grief, and because of our loss and rebirth of self. I found you via Celia Farber incidentally. Thank you both. Love, gratitude, Alan Chapman"
Thanks again Celia, and for anyone interested in Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration, it's here: positivedisintegration.com
I'm 67 years old now, and regard my traumas as gifts. I live a much more fearless, contented, fit, healthy, strong life now because of these gifts. And the very interesting thing is now, while have no wish to live for ever - when my time is up I'll go joyfully to whatever is next - I am increasingly fit and healthy at 67; more so than ever before in so very many ways. Energy is fascinating. Quantum. Plasma. Shungite. Auras. Manifesting. Dowsing. We are souls, not physical bodies, nor atoms. We are pure energy. Consciousness makes matter, not vice versa. I am extremely lucky. Enough ego to write this, but no more than that, and in awe of what loving souls can do in this somewhat illusory life :)
I agree with the observation about trauma in the world today. Aaron, Daniel and Gabor Mate have an excellent conversation about what's going on in Israel. Anyway, I thought I'd mention that video. You can see the collective trauma discussion starting at 20 minutes in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azxtxKyHntA&t=474s
Just think, I was born to trauma when my entire extended family was exterminated. Since my birth there’s been war and more wars my entire life. My parents were traumatized and passed it along…. Just like now when cancer has become like the common cold as has autism so much so that hardly anyone wonders how it happened, and majority got the poison shots without question. The world is in the grip of something deadly…
When I was graduating from art school...a good one, with a scholarship, I was extremely worried about whether I could make a living as a free-lance artist. It was in the mid-60's, and women were not welcomed so much as free-lancers then. My parents were pushing me to get married, to accept an art teacher job which would have landed me in a classroom for 5 days a week. Yech. At the urging of my (kind and worried) parents and a family friend, a psychiatrist, I went for talk therapy twice a week for over 2 years. It cost me half my little salary working as an art assistant in a magazine, and, when I looked back at the experience, it was a huge expensive waste of time. A friend introduced me to Scientology. I was curious, and read "Dianetics, Modern Science of Mental Health" and it made sense.
I went for the first intro lecture, and on the bench beside me in the waiting space was the NY Times...a giant headline: "Scientology, a Dangerous Cult". I said the hell with it I'll give it a try regardless. I did give it a try. After the Communication Course, and about 10 days of very concentrated, effective, and yes, mind-blowing auditing, I took my little portfolio out to work, and in short order, began scoring job after job. I began to make a living as an award-winning free-lance illustrator, and never looked back.. While I am saying nice things about Scientology, I think one should take it...as with any religious philosophy...with a bit of reserve and skepticism. But getting free of the psychiatric endless treadmill of lots of expense no results was a mighty good idea. Also a mighty good idea to NEVER believe the major media, who are sucking at the teat of the med/pharma complex.
YES! Anna Runkle is amazing. She's the first person who connected a LOT of dots for me. I'm very happy to see her business thriving. I bet she has helped a huge number of people. Thanks for sharing her. I can attest to her Morning Practice, and have attended a couple of those with her. The journaling in the a.m. is amazing.
You only ever seem to have good things to say about people who are flogging their books, Celia. I notice that. On the other hand, those who contribute excellent information freely to your Substack are given short shrift. Why is that?
Pete Walker wrote his Complex PTSD book about a dozen years ago. It was ground-breaking at the time. He still runs a very good website on the topic: https://pete-walker.com/complex_ptsd_book.html
Pete Levine and Tom Bunn and Stephen Porges and Melanie Tonia Evans and Eugene Gendlin and Paul David and Barry McDonagh and so many more people have published excellent material on C-PTSD/childhood trauma and how to deal with it.
I doubt whether Anna Runkle discovered or produced any therapy techniques of her own. Sounds to me like simple re-packaging of ideas already in the public domain.
Coincidentally at this moment I am listening to a live webinar by Anna that Hay House is offering to everyone who bought her new book. That tickling story is horrifying. How disrespectful! That illustrates my observation that too many people who go into healing work haven't done enough of their own.
Oh cool! I ended the call, checked my mail, and a friend told me about this post. A happy discovery. Thanks for coming to the hay house webinar!
Thank you for all your help! I watch your YouTubes regularly. You're a marvel.
It is an unfortunate fact that there are many people in the psych profession who only went into it because someone told them they had a MH diagnosis, and they wanted to check that out for themselves.
Yes, most in the psych profession are psycho ! IMO. There’s likely a few exceptions, but I never came across one in my 78 years.
All the ones I’ve worked with were obsessed with sex and sex abuse.
Once a male therapist described to me how to give a proper blow job, no kidding. Considering my family psychopathology it was so astounding it actually brought me some clarity. The real tragedy is the psychological community generally plays right into the very reasons most people seek therapy, looking for a champion, someone who believes them and in them, and stands with them. Instead we’re nullified and reminded to respect authority (honor they mother and father) the very hierarchical menaces authority figures that seek to control and abuse us. It’s monstrous.
"Instead we’re nullified and reminded to respect authority (honor they mother and father) the very hierarchical menaces authority figures that seek to control and abuse us. It’s monstrous."
this is unprofessional and abusive. Was this a church sponsored therapist? I think the newer crop of talk therapists have been taught techniques of conversation unknown before, and it might be worth another shot.
I tried a “new age” mostly out of curiosity. She told me on my first visit I had a “personality disorder” and gave me a pile of xerox copies to read. I thought, wow the newest spawn of idiots. After that I gave up the possibility of “therapy”. My notion that we’re all in this alone was once again reinforced.
YES AJ: Most psych people I've know tell me they went into it because THEY needed it. 88&8's,Dave
precisely
100%
Relating to your comment, please see mine above re: psychologist Alice Miller.
I also got livid when people did that to me when I was younger. Does ANYONE like it? And yeah, there is something gross about it - that when you say stop, they don't?
@Celia-farber, thank you for covering my work! It’s great to meet you. Maybe we can chat sometime. You have definitely picked up things I refrain from saying plainly (YouTube and all).
And to all the people who thought this post is about Alice Miller, I’m not Alice Miller.
Anna, I just expressed in a comment above how excited I was to see you comment and how much it means to me. Wow and thank you for taking the time!
I think I larded on too much Alice Miller, at the end, before posting the post and I usually explain that she has been thrown into a dark light by her son but I didn't this time.
Everybody, please hear me here:
I take Miller as a writer, not a "healer. "I quote her words, on the page, not invoking her as a healing therapist.
The post is about Anna. I will delete, perhaps, the Alice Miller because it caused some distraction.
God bless you and your work Anna, I am so happy I finally got on the right train with all this. I think you're part of a very hopeful movement in trauma recovery that actually works.
But you knew very little about Alice Miller until I told you. It was my post that alerted everyone to her abuse scandals with her son. This was all public. How did anyone miss it? Lots about this on the internet.
Forgiveness is for you, not the perpetrator. It’s only possible with God.
It's really about letting go for your own sake, isn't it! It always reminds me of that quote, "resentment is like eating poison and expecting the other person to die."
It’s difficult and important to heal.
GOD and Nature has healed me more than anything.
The nature is meant to heal and bring you closer to the creator
Alice Miller totally rocks. Her classic book, "Drama of the Gifted Child" pierces the heart. Brace yourself.
Well, I have read several hundred books and papers on the same topic since reading Alice Miller. And I think there are many authors whose work out-ranks hers.
Really? She abused her own child.
Her book was just to polish her image. She contradicted her own writing.
Kinda like I always was interested in Alice Munro's writing, but found out she was married to a pedophile who abused her own daughter, and she stayed with him....
Alice Munro was one of our iconic Canadian writers.
I am not sure what to make of those stories. They could well be true. Or perhaps not. I think of the False Memory Syndrome of the 90s. The stories did not come out until after Alice's death, so we do not know what her opinion or defence was.
On the other hand, Alice Miller admitted the abuse against her son.
I would be a bit careful with Alice Miller. Some controversies there with her own son, Martin Miller. Rather like the controversial nature of Bruno Bettelheim having been overlooked by his readers too.
I read her Gifted Child book in my student years, though I cannot say it was anything more than a description of what happened in dysfunctional family systems. I did not find it healing.
I think her work is over-rated. She failed to heal herself, and passed on the trauma as a parent to her own son. She was always far too simplistic.
I did find her books helpful at the time someone referred them to me. But I agree, she was hardly a role model. I’m curious re the books you found helpful, can you recommend a few ?
But... but, A, what about Arendt?
If I were Arendt, my feelings would be hurt.
I can picture her imitating Rodney Dangerfield's voice, saying "no respect, just can't get no respect!"
I mean, everyone ALWAYS leaves out Arendt.
.....I do hope that you'll forgive me taking liberties with my bit of gently respectful teasing; it was too difficult to resist, I was overcome by a fit of whimsy and momentarily not myself. ;-)
Not me. I don't forget much.
Ted....you should know me better than that! I did not leave out Hannah Arendt 😁. Go back to the original Sept, 20 postings and the Rufo Substack. I added another post on the Chris Rufo site with what I considered the more challenging material. Hannah Arendt included. I could have added another hundred titles to cover everything. But very few will read any book these days. So I do not bother now.
Nancy here was asking for the introductory material, as far as I knew. So I offered that and left the rest. She can come back to me after she has polished off my initial list.
"Ted....you should know me better than that! I did not leave out Hannah Arendt 😁. "
I will interpret that as a "yes, you're forgiven, but just this once," A.
I certainly will track back, and I'm greatly relieved that you didn't leave her out, after all. I was SO disappointed at the mere suspicion that poor ol' Hannah "gets no respect."
Note to self: get a new copy of "Origins," that tattered old copy is falling apart, and one day you won't be able to find the pages that keep falling out.
A digression; we can probably consider that Arendt/Dangerfield juxtaposition as a Rorshach test of uncertain virtue.
By the way, I'm not "stalking" you" through the 'stacks, merely pleased and rather delighted at once again crossing paths with a keen mind that places compassion highly within the hierarchy of priorities. Seems rather an outlier, these days.
Thank you. I will look at all of these.
Jean Liedloff, Joseph Chilton Pearce, Alice Miller, Bruno Bettelheim, Carlos Castaneda, Laurens van der Post -- you have to be careful with these utopian authors. Similar to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. They were giving readers what they wanted to hear at the time. Not necessarily the truth or the full truth. They may not even have known what that was. Castaneda and VDP were downright frauds
I can’t find Management of Reality”. Can you post a link. Thank you for posting authors who are not worthy, I’m interested in those who are. Also, I think Millers contribution was that she outed the entire psychological community for the frauds they were/are. Also, after reading all her books I finally realized why I couldn’t figure out what happened to me … it was because my mother in particular was mentally ill. It’s impossible for a child to digest a situation that makes no sense and it took me 60 years to realize. So Miller may have been a fraud and a terrible mother she did help me, figure that.
F. Gil-White right up my proverbial alley. I will definitely look at your recommendations. Thank you. See how this works, by Celia posting the Miller quote I find you and a list of kindred spirits. Hallelujah to all us free thinkers.
Free thinking is my specialty, Nancy. And then I do the work.
See Francisco's concept of how anti-semitism began. Best theory of that I have ever come across.
Celia did not have much to so with it. I don't think she understands or is interested in half of this material. And shows zero gratitude. I have contributed great heaps to her site. No longer.
Too bad. She was one of the few to expose the AIDS horror and became more visible when Fauci replayed his game during Covid (isolation lies and deadly drugs). Otherwise she seems to be struggling with her own demons, as are we all. She’s willing to put it all out there. Childhood trauma and abuse takes many forms. Also, your recommendations require a keen intelligence, progressive education. Some of the names I recognize and they require a lot to read and understand, a few I’ve tried. I’ll definitely check them all out (I made a list) but I’m not much of a student. I’m a plodder and operate on instinct and experience and something else undefinable. I’m just not much of an intellectual and it’s likely Celia is like me in some ways ! Also I stopped taking too much seriously on line, certainly not personally. Many comments are authentic and heartfelt but just as many just plain stupid…
"Too many notes" say the critics in the film Amadeus.
As an aside, funny that you include a quote from therapist/writer Alice Miller...who I once respected. That was until I learned that she abused her own child.
Gleaned from internet:
"Outwardly, Alice Miller stood for the empathetic and non-violent education of children, thereby becoming a star of pedagogy. Her own son [Martin Miller] came to know a very different woman. The book, which he now has written at the age of 63, is not an accusation. But rather the attempt to understand deeply ingrained traumas.
The book is called
The True “Drama of the Gifted Child”: The Phantom Alice Miller"
My husband does deeply good work with his clients, helping them heal trauma at its root cause, whether in this lifetime or a past one. He came to do the work because of a leukemia diagnosis 20 years ago, which sent him to the physical, then mental, and finally spiritual dimension.
He always says that clients show up to work with him "when they've suffered enough," meaning that they've exhausted all the more traditional approaches. It takes courage to do the work necessary to heal -- it's not easy, and it's not comfortable. Most are not willing to step into the fire of transformation.
That is what I have been saying here, there and everywhere. The information is available. But the majority of people are not willing to do what it takes.
Their choice. Until they hit rock bottom and there is no wiggle-room left.
Trauma in the world today? I have been discussing that in my posts on several platforms, for years. Not many responses. And very few will do the reading. I have formal expertise in totalitarianism...but it gets overlooked. I used to share it freely. Think I will stop.
I just deleted about a dozen informative posts on Celia's earlier Substack today, because there was so little interest. Even from Celia. Who I had been led to believe did have interest. Uh-huh....
My conclusions? Most people do not REALLY want the answers....if this means they must stretch themselves. They just want a sounding board for sympathy. And then it stops there.
Very few are willing to do the actual work required. I am disappointed in human nature. Maybe God is too. Though I am not overtly religious. Perhaps that is what he is trying to get across.
People with certain forms of C-PTSD only read electronic texts sometimes and other times don't so it appears they (we) are not interested but it's that we were in the disconnect mode and stopped following a thread. It can be some kind of fear that came in, anything at all. I wish you wouldn't feel the need to delete anything. I often come back and catch up later when I have disassociated from a comments thread.
Anna Runkle is here! She, with characteristic connectedness (healed from disassociation) let me know, let us know, she got the post, she read it, and she appreciated it. I'm not start struck but I am happy!
Absolutely. I get a lot of info from peoples' comments and don't necessarily reply to them.
Celia, you have told me your side. Now let me tell you my side.
I realized this larger dimension of life when I was a girl. I asked questions even then such as the cause of the collective madness in 1930s Germany. And I read very widely to find answers. Then I put in a long and grueling university career. Which I paid for myself by working menial jobs. No support other than my own.
And along the way, I experienced personal totalitarianism. To which I lost everything I had.
Still, I have spent quite a number of years freely offering my expertise as a researcher/writer on several platforms. In the name of humanitarianism. I have not been paid a penny. In the early years pre-COVID, I was soundly mocked. By the fools out there. Then I called Mass Formation long before Mattias Desmet did...once COVID insanity hit. And yet Mattias was the star because he made podcasts.
I answer and assist people as if I am invoicing $300 hr. All out of the goodness of my heart, and the expensive education I paid for in every way. Plus the bone-rattling experience I went through for many years. Did I mention I read prolifically, and pass on the suggestions and reviews? Even though there are few other readers out there these days.
So please understand things from my point of view for once. I would be hosting Substack subscribers myself, apart from the fact that there are a few sticky points there.
No more excuses, please. Have a bit more empathy and gratitude, Celia, for someone who has made many, many informed contributions to your site! You are not entertaining me....I am informing YOU! You are going to need to do better showing people like me some appreciation.
Actually, I have now cancelled my subscription as of next week.
whoa!
that's... weird.
LOL!
How so, agent Roger? Your posts are often unclear.
LOL!
I feel that you are trying to pick a fight.
I’m not gonna play. I sense a bad mojo here.
Do you remember that quote that goes something like “sometimes when you look into the abyss the abyss looks back at you”? I think that explains why your comment was weird.
If you don’t like my comments, just don’t read. Also, English is not my first language. I commit some ungrammaricalities sometimes. Sorry!
You can also block me. I invite you to block me. You may feel better. Go to my profile page by clicking on my ever changing moniker, and search below the picture the three dots, and click that to open a menu, in which, among many other options, you have the option to block, which works differently from mute, but that’s besides the point.
You don't offer much, in whatever language. Except your insults.
I think you are envious, Roger. I get envy-vibes from you. Just like Celia, when you two cannot cope with another commenter here and the fact that they out-do you....you find some leaky excuse for your behaviour.
It's quite transparent. Sometimes I giggle over this. Other times I have reached my annoyance peak. Today, I reached my annoyance peak. Dear Celia could not even offer me a thank you for all the accurate and interesting contributions I have made to her site over time.
I will not worry. I have un-subscribed.
You do seem to be star-struck on people who have books to flog. I have noticed that. Do you have deals with them?
Then maybe you should not have a Substack. Which requires much digital reading and writing.
Agree, the work is not easy and not everyone is willing. This, from Martin Miller, Alice Miller's son. https://www.sott.net/article/291991-The-drama-of-the-gifted-child-whose-mother-was-Alice-Miller-The-loop-of-intergenerational-abuse
I’m very interested. Please share your most edifying readings with me. Miller came as close to helping me understand as anyone. Perhaps I was looking in the wrong place.
Celia that's a lovely post thank you. I commented thus on Anna Runkle's video:
"Excellent thank you. I'm still working on reinventing myself so as to earn good money again, but all else is good for me now, and your guidance is very wise, because you have lived it.
'It' is work of the soul IMHO/experience. I've lived the trauma-informed rebirth too (as I often frame 'it'), although differently because I'm a man, and my particular traumas were rooted in believing I was responsible for putting others before myself (from very early childhood) which then meant that my response to losing my partner to suicide was that I should end suicide globally. I seriously believed it was my responsibility and purpose to do that. Anyway, long stories.
Emotional growth hurts, and that's why we need to stay in charge; to do what we need to learn that we deserve self-love, self-forgiveness, and then to practice these things and more.
Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration helped me a lot - to understand the point of the pain; that we grow because of our grief, and because of our loss and rebirth of self. I found you via Celia Farber incidentally. Thank you both. Love, gratitude, Alan Chapman"
Thanks again Celia, and for anyone interested in Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration, it's here: positivedisintegration.com
I'm 67 years old now, and regard my traumas as gifts. I live a much more fearless, contented, fit, healthy, strong life now because of these gifts. And the very interesting thing is now, while have no wish to live for ever - when my time is up I'll go joyfully to whatever is next - I am increasingly fit and healthy at 67; more so than ever before in so very many ways. Energy is fascinating. Quantum. Plasma. Shungite. Auras. Manifesting. Dowsing. We are souls, not physical bodies, nor atoms. We are pure energy. Consciousness makes matter, not vice versa. I am extremely lucky. Enough ego to write this, but no more than that, and in awe of what loving souls can do in this somewhat illusory life :)
Okay, this. Anybody who has a great name for their website, like crappychildhoodfairy, I'm going to spend some time there.
You won't be disappointed. Her content is so very helpful.
I agree with the observation about trauma in the world today. Aaron, Daniel and Gabor Mate have an excellent conversation about what's going on in Israel. Anyway, I thought I'd mention that video. You can see the collective trauma discussion starting at 20 minutes in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azxtxKyHntA&t=474s
Just think, I was born to trauma when my entire extended family was exterminated. Since my birth there’s been war and more wars my entire life. My parents were traumatized and passed it along…. Just like now when cancer has become like the common cold as has autism so much so that hardly anyone wonders how it happened, and majority got the poison shots without question. The world is in the grip of something deadly…
When I was graduating from art school...a good one, with a scholarship, I was extremely worried about whether I could make a living as a free-lance artist. It was in the mid-60's, and women were not welcomed so much as free-lancers then. My parents were pushing me to get married, to accept an art teacher job which would have landed me in a classroom for 5 days a week. Yech. At the urging of my (kind and worried) parents and a family friend, a psychiatrist, I went for talk therapy twice a week for over 2 years. It cost me half my little salary working as an art assistant in a magazine, and, when I looked back at the experience, it was a huge expensive waste of time. A friend introduced me to Scientology. I was curious, and read "Dianetics, Modern Science of Mental Health" and it made sense.
I went for the first intro lecture, and on the bench beside me in the waiting space was the NY Times...a giant headline: "Scientology, a Dangerous Cult". I said the hell with it I'll give it a try regardless. I did give it a try. After the Communication Course, and about 10 days of very concentrated, effective, and yes, mind-blowing auditing, I took my little portfolio out to work, and in short order, began scoring job after job. I began to make a living as an award-winning free-lance illustrator, and never looked back.. While I am saying nice things about Scientology, I think one should take it...as with any religious philosophy...with a bit of reserve and skepticism. But getting free of the psychiatric endless treadmill of lots of expense no results was a mighty good idea. Also a mighty good idea to NEVER believe the major media, who are sucking at the teat of the med/pharma complex.
love Alice Miller
The Poisoning and Murder of the Masses Is Now in High Gear
GARY D. BARNETT
OCT 14, 2024
YES! Anna Runkle is amazing. She's the first person who connected a LOT of dots for me. I'm very happy to see her business thriving. I bet she has helped a huge number of people. Thanks for sharing her. I can attest to her Morning Practice, and have attended a couple of those with her. The journaling in the a.m. is amazing.
You only ever seem to have good things to say about people who are flogging their books, Celia. I notice that. On the other hand, those who contribute excellent information freely to your Substack are given short shrift. Why is that?
Pete Walker wrote his Complex PTSD book about a dozen years ago. It was ground-breaking at the time. He still runs a very good website on the topic: https://pete-walker.com/complex_ptsd_book.html
Pete Levine and Tom Bunn and Stephen Porges and Melanie Tonia Evans and Eugene Gendlin and Paul David and Barry McDonagh and so many more people have published excellent material on C-PTSD/childhood trauma and how to deal with it.
I doubt whether Anna Runkle discovered or produced any therapy techniques of her own. Sounds to me like simple re-packaging of ideas already in the public domain.