Bilder einer Kindheit. 66 Aquarelle und ein Essay.

by Alice Miller

In PICTURES OF CHILDHOOD, Alice Miller explores the connection between childhood and that creative anxiety which 'somehow permits us to come to grips with the demons of our past and give form to the chaos within and thereby master our anxiety.'Having realised in the early seventies a lifelong desire to paint, Dr Miller found an unfamiliar world emerging from her not the 'nice' world of her childhood, to which she had always testified, but one of fear, despair and loneliness. Meditating on her spontaneously executed watercolours- sixty-six of which are reproduced here in full colour- and their implications, Dr Miller offers a profound analysis of the roots of creativity in the authentic self's struggle for survival.

Genres: Psychology, Art, Nonfiction, Self Help, Biography

Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Alice Miller was a Polish-Swiss psychologist, psychoanalyst and philosopher of Jewish origin, who is noted for her books on parental child abuse, translated into several languages. She was also a noted public intellectual.
Her book The Drama of the Gifted Child caused a sensation and became an international bestseller upon the English publication in 1981. Her views on the consequences of child abuse became highly influential. In her books she departed from psychoanalysis, charging it with being similar to the poisonous pedagogies.

Reviews

[Andrew Barnett · Rating 5 out of 5]

These watercolors are haunting. Miller has insight into how to tap into repressed childhood pain- the ways to get there, how to take what comes out of your unconscious seriously, and to take your pain seriously, and is able to pass on the perspective necessary to allow others to heal, and to paint, and to use their art to explore their pain. It is a call to all of us to not fetishize our art and our pain, and to not form identity around our pain, but to really experience it, and to have the courage to move forward connected to our childhood reality. A badass woman and a badass book. I have been painting ever since reading it, and it has changed my life.

[C A · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was hoping to read Alice Miller's personal analysis on some of her specific paintings, ending up slightly disappointed. Still awarding this book with 5 stars. Another must read.