Wounded children adapt to the world view implicit in their parents' behavior. In doing so, they experience themselves as defective, unlovable, unworthy of respect. Sometimes, well into their own adukhood, they will continue to believe the best of their parents, having banished from their minds the memories of how they were hurt. This is the “banished knowledge” of which Alice Miller speaks in her new book.

For some years, Miller has been denouncing the wounds inflicted by parents. She condemns the conventional child-rearing practices—or “poisonous pedagogy”—by which even supposedly good parents crush the spirit, the will, and the positive self-feelings of children in the name of