For Your Own Good

Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

By: Alice Miller

Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin

Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

For Your Own Good, the contemporary classic exploring the serious if not gravely dangerous consequences parental cruelty can bring to bear on children everywhere, is one of the central works by Alice Miller, the celebrated Swiss psychoanalyst. With her typically lucid, strong, and poetic language, Miller investigates the personal stories and case histories of various self-destructive and/or violent individuals to expand on her theories about the long-term effects of abusive child-rearing. Her conclusions - on what sort of parenting can create a drug addict, or a murderer, or a Hitler - offer much insight, and make a good deal of sense, while also straying far from psychoanalytic dogma about human nature, which Miller vehemently rejects. This important study paints a shocking picture of the violent world - indeed, of the ever-more-violent world - that each generation helps to create when traditional upbringing, with its hidden cruelty, is perpetuated. The book also presents listeners with useful solutions in this regard - namely, to re-sensitize the victimized child who has been trapped within the adult, and to unlock the emotional life that has been frozen in repression.

©1980 Suhrkamp Verlag; translation copyright 1983, 1984, 1990, 2002 by Alice Miller; preface copyright 2002 by Alice Miller (P)2017 Tantor

Great book- too wordy

This book is great, but very difficult to listen to. It is very wordy. I am getting so frustrated listening and trying to follow along. I wish it was narrated by someone who spoke with more expression.

everyone should read or listen.

if you want to be free from torment, be it by another or by the self, this will definitely open your eyes to this. jo anna perrin did an excellent job of reading.

Stay with it.

Wisdom we all need. It is a bit hard to follow only because the author is so often switching between story telling or reciting others writing. Which is then followed by her own commentary.

Illuminating and devastating

I had the physical copy of this book on my shelf for years, but bc I have a learning disability, did not get around to reading it until buying the audiobook copy. If I had known how much this would have helped me unpack the generations of abuse in my family, I would have read it 8 years ago.

My family is very conservative, very evangelical, and very cruel, and has been so for generations. I received the “poisonous pedagogy” not only from my parents, but my grandma, and aunt and uncle, who also helped raise me.

I have had depression since I was less than 5 years old, attempted suicide twice in my teen years, and through those times had no idea what was wrong bc my parents insisted I had everything I could ever want, “what do you have to be depressed about?”was a common barb. Only in my late 20s, after coming out as transgender and queer to my family, and having a period of years where we didn’t speak, was I able to start to see what really happened to me. As my therapist said at the time, “if only it was just the trans stuff, then this might be easier!”

This book was the first time I felt I was “allowed” to hate my parents for their treatment of me. No mental health professional ever used the word, and so in my mind it was this major taboo that I needed to be ashamed of. The insistence of spiritual and therapeutic leaders in my life to seek forgiveness led me back into a relationship with them, which I deeply regret, as it’s filled with even more denial and repression of not only who I am now, but what has happened to me.

Speaking from a political perspective, there was a lot of religious and conservative squashing of my impulses as a child that reminded me a lot of some of the oldest child-rearing manuals referenced in this book, the ones calling children little wicked manipulators out to make the parents look bad. I was explicitly told I was doing this from a young age, when I had no idea what manipulation even was. Most of my mothers deepest fears about me came from religious fanaticism, and fear of demons. The exorcist was a life changing (traumatic) experience for her as a child and it made her deeply devout. Any steps I take away from religion, or even towards my own self actualization outside of having a straight marriage, kids, and a house, is seen as the work of drugs, a cult, bad influences, or demonic forces. It’s never occurred to her that I might think for myself.

It’s also been illuminating in how accepting they are of an increasingly totalitarian Republican Party, even one with a large percentage that wants their own child dead. But they always did as they were told, always wanted me to accept and respect any and all authority. And now that my grandparents are all dead, they’ve all become saints in the eyes of my parents, unable to be criticized for their abuse towards them or me.

This book unlocked so many buried memories, and so many unspoken feelings. I’m disappointed more of the book wasn’t spent on how to move forward beyond confrontation and “hopefully, reconciliation,” because I’m interested in neither of those. I’m hoping to find those answers elsewhere. But for now, this was a pivotal step in my journey.

Shocking reveling

Highly recommended to at least have an idea how the mistreatment of parents affect our adult behavior

Monotonous performance

The narrator's performance was very monotonous, especially for such a long audio.
The book contains (especially the first section) contains a lot of excerpts from other books, and the narrator read them all in one tone, it was difficult for me to differentiate just from hearing what belonged to this book and what being read as an excerpt.
In other audios, narrators either change their tone, pitch, or speed to indicate a change between characters, quotes or excerpts.

Heart breaking reality

The author demostrates a very harsh reality on how abuse dictates the future of children. Thank you Alice Miller for such heart breaking awareness

Should be required reading for everyone

This truly is the most self revealing book I've ever read. It should be required reading for everyone person on the planet.

Devastating truth, decades after original publication

Devastating truth, decades after original publication. I am grateful to the author for the brutal truth she lays bare on these pages. It’s hard to imagine (because it had such an influence on me the first time I read it), but it was even even more meaningful this time around.
In my opinion, Perrin’s narration did a disservice to the text. Plaintiff and droll, she slaughtered the poem by Plath and lessened the quality of the listening experience.

Dark and Depressing Walk Through Pedagogy

I can't tell where she is criticizing and where she is advocating for manipulation and abuse. Confusing, triggering, dark. I enjoyed her book on the gifted child more, though it had some of this. This book is full of gut wrenching ideas and religious dogma and it is not clear if she is saying this is good or bad much of the time, but it definitely feels very bad in my body. Hate stirring. Do not recommend for general consumption. She seems completely obsessed with punishment and how to do it better? This book has made me very sad for humanity. It is not helpful or hopeful, and just goes on and on about how to punish children into being good punishers of themselves? This book has turned my perception of pedagogy very dark and left me feeling very grateful for all the neglect I was gifted in my childhood. I was labeled gifted and still feel punished for it most days...as agonizing is it is to feel freewilled in our modern domesticated society, I am very grateful to be me. ...is she actually saying we should use corpses to teach children about human sexuality?!? HOW is this woman considered an expert? I guess if breaking wills and propagating shame and abuse is your thing... She does this with an air of shame and blame towards those who shame and blame which I don't quite understand. I do find the argument that poisonous pedagody might create characters like Hitler to be sound and easy to follow, though not a knew idea for me.