Really, Alice laid it out, I’m only trying to give her POV, her revelation in a different way, and from different angles.
I think she’s been somewhat marginalized because so much of her ideas have been bound up with the repression concept, and worse, with the hope of the recovery of repressed memories. That controversy introduces some doubt, and that is all we all need to justify our denial.
I hope that my contribution to the conversation will be to show that the important parts, the main points of Miller’s teaching, do not require that repression or the recovery of repressed memories be accepted. I think I can make a case that children the world over and forever have mostly been abused, and that even ‘acceptable’ punishments constitute that abuse. I think it can be shown, in simple language and without any leaps of faith that punishment – any punishment – causes damage to people, children, and that the ubiquity of the damage does in no way invalidate the harm to individuals and to societies. Rather the reverse.
Abuse with an Excuse 