My family is pretty much bizarre. Another of my brothers, the one who lives in uttermost denial about what happened to his much older siblings at home, holds a position in the Mexican government. Of course: he never helped me the least bit.
I don't know why I became obsessed with Daniel Mackler this couple of days. His futuristic philosophy of "no dreams, no unconscious" is so funny…
Instead of that psychic fantasy Dan should better question the legitimacy of therapy. Remember that entry in his forum about what a psychoanalyst did to me back in my teens? The therapist sided my perpetrators to the point of bringing the minor I was into panic: something pretty common in the profession according to Jeffrey Masson. And how could Dan become aware of reality if he rejected to read both Against Therapy and Final Analysis when we posted in his forum?
There can be no healing without hate. Thanks Jeffrey Masson!: as to my hellish analytic experiences you healed me. On the other hand I doubt that, as incapable as he seems to feel hate, Dan could ever help the clients who might attest the same horror stories in his office.
You say that what attracted to you was Dan's essay on Miller? Well, I hold another point of view. I believe that Mimsy really did it in Dan's forum:
Although I won't check it up, I would bet Daniel Mackler censored this entry in his now frozen "forum"...Mimsy wrote:I mainly want to say that I think it's totally reasonable of Alice Miller to be unresponsive to your [Daniel Mackler] essay and even dismissive.
Here is a woman who has spent much of her life swimming upstream, going against the flow, fighting against the going paradigm. Simultaneously she is trying to heal her own wounds; she must feel awfully vulnerable much of the time. So here she is trying to stand up to constant criticism while at the same time carrying around all these unhealed wounds. And here you come along and attack her, yet again. It's true that you also say how much you have learned from her, how influential she has been for you. But your primary purpose with the essay seems to be to harp on how she's NOT PERFECT.
Sorry for the all caps shouting, but I want to make a point that by writing your essay with this accusatory tone, you are practicing exactly the same sort of critical, judgmental behavior that you say is so damaging. Somehow you expect this wounded, damaged soul, Alice Miller, to be immune to your criticism. For her not to be sensitive to your attacks.
If I were you, I'd go back and try to read your essay with a mind to how it might FEEL to be Alice Miller and read your words. Given the FEELINGS that your essay might invoke in her, imagine her trying to remain detached and untriggered by old wounds. No matter how successful YOU might be in remaining detached when people make comments, this doesn't mean SHE should be able to be equally detached. She's under constant fire, from all sides; she's getting old, and probably worn out from the battle. Despite all her efforts, and all her insights, she hasn't been able to truly get the healing SHE needs. She's also a woman in a field where most of the heavy hitters have been men. Getting recognition and not being heard as "shrill" is a battle women have to face on top of everything else. Can you cut her some slack? Not be so hard on her? She's done amazing things. No one is perfect. Life is a series of course corrections.
And perhaps you might even consider what parts of your own unhealed wounds you are projecting onto her in your demands for perfection. Are you insisting that she be the perfect mother you never had? I would perhaps question your motives in writing your essay as a "critique", rather than simply saying: "Here's what I learned from Alice Miller's amazing work. And here are some ways that I think maybe we could go even further."
Can you imagine writing what you did, extending her theories, going beyond where she went without attacking her in the process? If you were able to do this, I think she would feel validated, appreciated. You would be building on what she DID do, what she DID accomplish, rather than focusing on the areas where she was human and failed to be perfect.
If you choose to re-read your essay with an eye toward greater compassion toward Alice Miller, you might notice that using "Limits" in the title started off on the wrong foot to get her to listen to you with an open mind. You might do some word counts to see how often you use language that most people would perceive as critical if they were on the receiving end. Try to put yourself in her shoes. And I realize you didn't write the essay as a direct letter to her, and maybe never thought about whether she'd ever read it. You were processing your own needs, which is cool.
I think it'd be an interesting, and revealing, exercise for you to try to say what you think about her in a non-judgmental way.