What About Alice Miller?

Reader Neil Samuels has queried my unwillingness to accept Alice Miller’s views on physical punishment as necessarily correct, and has asked what I mean by the “Alice Miller belief system.” Before I go on to talk about these matters, let me state once more my position that mild physical punishment (open hand, one or two smacks on buttocks or upper legs) for preschool children may be effective and harmless when used very occasionally to enforce important rules. I have argued in an earlier post that there is no support for the claim that this parental behavior models a general tendency to violence. I have also argued for many years against genuinely abusive practices like those recommended by the Pearls and the “Babywise” books.

So, why do I not accept Alice Miller’s statements as unarguably correct? My reasoning is that those statements are based on a series of abstractions that lack empirical support, rather than on systematically-collected information about parenting practices and child development outcomes.

Alice Miller was a European lay-analyst and shared the attitudes and views of many such people, who have tended to reason from what they regard as first principles rather than to consider the necessity of working with reliable information. Much of Miller’s work resembles closely that of Marguerite Sechehaye and of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann. Like those authors, Miller emphasized the psychoanalytic principles of repression and regression, and by doing so placed the essential events in personality formation early in childhood and outside of consciousness. In addition, her view completely ignored the concept of transactional processes by which changing interactions between a specific child and a specific adult have developmental outcomes that would be different if either individual were different.

The psychoanalytic concept of repression claims that memories of disturbing experiences can be removed from conscious awareness and inaccessible to the individual except through psychoanalytic treatment, but can continue to influence mood, behavior, and motivation in ways that feel foreign to the personality. Although this idea has become almost universally accepted in Western popular culture, there is in fact no empirical support for such a mechanism. As Susan Clancy and Richard McNally have pointed out, ordinary mechanisms of memory and forgetting are perfectly adequate explanations of events that have been categorized as repression (for example, Clancy, McNally, Schachter, Lenzenweger, Pitman. [2002]. Memory distortion in people reporting abduction by aliens. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 111, 455-461).

The psychoanalytic concept of regression claims that earlier versions of personality and experience can be re-accessed through psychoanalytic techniques, and that such re-accessing allows the individual to change a developmental trajectory that went wrong at a given time. In fact, as I have shown in my own work (Mercer [2011]. The concept of psychological regression: Metaphors, mapping, Queen Square, and Tavistock Square. History of Psychology, 14, 174-196), the idea of personality regression is a metaphor drawn from 19th century work on the results of physical damage to the nervous system. Although psychoanalytically-oriented practitioners over the years encouraged the acting-out of apparent regression (and this was especially true of proponents of “wild psychoanalysis” like Ferenczi), there is no empirical support for the existence of such a mechanism.

Thus, there is no evidence for the existence of Miller’s two major personality mechanisms repression and regression, and I believe this is a strong argument against the general accuracy of her claims. However, there are additional problems in her thinking. As is well known, Miller spent some years of involvement with and commitment to primal therapy, a form of treatment suggesting that psychological treatment must depend on regression to very early stages and intense acting-out of pain and distress posited to have been part of those stages ( an idea associated with Otto Rank’s and later with Wilhelm Reich’s views of development). Primal-related thinkers such as the “psychohistorian” Lloyd DeMause; David Chamberlain,who claims that all babies remember their births; and William Emerson, who massages babies until they cry as a way of working through the notional birth trauma, are all enthusiasts of Miller’s beliefs.

I see two major problems in this association. The first is that the concepts of early development espoused by primal therapists are based on adult experiences under LSD or hyperventilation rather than any systematic and replicable evidence about infancy and early childhood. When there are conflicts between LSD-based ideas and those derived from systematic study (for example, our understanding of infants’ memory and forgetting), I would hold that the latter source is more trustworthy, and I don’t believe it’s necessary to spell out why I take that position.

A second problem has to do with the assumption of the primal group, shared by Miller, that mechanisms characteristic of the individual (and speculative mechanisms at that) are sufficient to explain behavior of a group-- for example, that repressed anger and fear, were they in existence in members of a group, would be the reason for abusing children, going to war, etc. This belief ignores decades of work on, for example, economic factors in racial conflict, and fails to note that there must be some way in which such notional individual mechanisms would be translated into coordinated behavior of a group. Like the primal therapists, Miller chooses to ignore the complexities of social behavior in favor of discussion of the poorly-documented personal backgrounds of a few historical figures. Although this makes for entertaining reading, it is a very weak basis for a world-view.

These are the reasons that I do not accept Miller’s broad prohibition on all forms of physical punishment as necessarily correct. Her position is not in any way empirically based. Her thinking in general has the Platonic form so appealing to those who would prefer not to engage deeply with a topic, but instead are attracted to statements of what “must be”. I would suggest that people who are genuinely interested in how disciplinary methods influence children’s development should seek out the work of Grace Kochanska, who has shown how child personality differences interact with parental behavior to produce predictable outcomes.

Physical Punishment Tales from the Memory Vault

All this discussion of physical punishment has brought back memories from the long ago, and I want to recount one just to show how complicated these things really are.
Years and years and years ago, my older son was about three years old. I decided that it would be nice for him to have a blackboard in his room, because he always liked to write on the board if he came to class with me. I got some blackboard paint and painted a section of wall, got colored chalk, even fixed up a little chalk tray with a piece of quarter-round, and painted the rest of the wall a nice clean white. [Parents who are more experienced than I was at the time will see what’s coming.] I did all that, then left the room for half an hour-- and when I came back my firstborn had climbed up on some shelves, studiously avoiding the blackboard, and chalked all over the nice white wall. I was infuriated, which was really quite unreasonable because I hadn’t thought to tell him not to do this. I told him off thoroughly and delivered a couple of swats on the bottom.

A few hours later, this conversation took place.

CHILD: (firmly) Mom! I don’t like all that screaming and spanking.

ME: Well… what do you think I should do when you’re naughty?

CHILD: (thinks a minute) Tell me quietly, and clean it up.

ME: Oh. Well, if I did that, would you stop doing it?

CHILD: No.


It just goes to show-- as the saying goes, the camel driver he has his opinion; the camel he has his. But the family caravan still needs to keep lumbering along and usually manages to do so to the best of everyone’s imperfect ability.

More Mulling on Physical Punishment

Boy, I never thought I’d be arguing against people who argue against physical punishment for children. However, I think and have always thought that blanket prohibitions or admonitions either require some evidence or, as an alternative, need to be stated on moral grounds. If anyone wants to say they simply think it’s wrong to use physical punishment, I can’t argue with their belief. But when a belief is disguised as a statement of evidence-- I can’t go along with that without a response.

There are three issues about physical punishment that I want to noodle about for a bit. One is the fact that if punishment is to be used, mild physical punishment has certain advantages. Another is an alternative way of thinking about the idea that parents who spank are acting as inappropriate role models and teach their children to use violence. The last involves the belief that it’s all right for parents to use physical punishment, but not for schools or day care centers to do so.

1. When I refer to mild physical punishment, I’m referring to one or two smacks with an open hand on the clothed buttocks or backs of the legs of a preschool child. If punishment is needed to bring about behavior change favorable to the health and safety of all concerned, mild physical punishment has some real advantages. It’s well established that punishment works when it is given concurrently with an unwanted behavior; it actually works best when it occurs just as the child prepares for the behavior; the longer after the behavior the punishment comes, the less effective it is. Punishment is quite ineffective when it’s delayed “until Daddy gets home”, or when it involves deprivation of some future treat like dessert tonight or a birthday party on Saturday. Mild physical punishment can be performed more or less on the instant. Note, though, that if it isn’t done right away, you might as well not do it at all, as it will not later be connected with the unwanted behavior, but instead will be associated with whatever has gone on just before. (Any thoughts about our correctional system, by the way?)


2. Now, this role model thing: everybody and their brother states with certainty that a parent who uses physical punishment is acting as a role model to encourage violent behavior. But is that actually true? Not everything parents do serves as a role model for their child’s general behavior. For example, single mothers regularly teach their toddler and preschool sons to pee standing up, even though the little boys, in their frequent invasions of the bathroom, always see Mom sitting down on the toilet. Mothers can wear high heels; little children don’t except for playing “dress-up”. Fathers and mothers too are heard to say selected words which children aren’t supposed to say.

In addition, much of our instruction and modeling of behavior for children is a matter of teaching time, manner, and place. We don’t, in fact, usually teach children that violence is never acceptable. We accept and even approve of it in sports, in defense of a person under attack, in self-defense, and so on. A football player who is highly aggressive on the field is admired, but if he beats up his girlfriend later there will be some people (not enough, though) who will disapprove deeply. Children are socialized by their experiences with their parents into an understanding of the times, manners, and places in which violent behavior is permitted (or even required). Learning that it is acceptable for an adult to spank a child for repeated dangerous behavior does not involve the same time, manner, or place rules as learning that it is acceptable to mug old ladies or participate in gang warfare. To think so is to over-generalize--- what Jerome Kagan has called the “seductive idea” of abstractionism.

3. Our society’s great confusion about physical punishment is exemplified in the idea that parents may spank or smack, but day care centers and preschools may not. (I omit discussion of physical punishment in elementary and high schools, which when permitted has often gone far beyond the “mild” level, and which should not be necessary at those ages for children who are less impulsive and better self-regulated than younger children.)

We seem to have two conflicting ideas about spanking. One is that it’s a bad thing to do, and that’s why teachers aren’t allowed to do it. The other is that parents have a right to do things to their children as they choose, and if they don’t spank their children the children will run wild (and be annoying to the rest of us, I suppose is the real concern). Logically, of course, if it’s a bad thing, nobody should be doing it, although we can probably stop teachers a lot more easily than we can parents; if it’s an acceptable thing for parents, why shouldn’t teachers do it too?

I think it’s possible that this conflict is based on the assumption that because parents love their children and know them well, they will not let physical punishment get out of hand, and they will comfort a child who is upset--- but that teachers do not love the child and are likely to turn the Kiddie Academy into Dotheboys Hall if given any opportunity. In reality, the opposite might well be true, as teachers are less likely to experience the fatigue and frustration of daily and nightly child care, or conflict with a co-parent who focuses on relationship problems in connection with childrearing.


A [temporary] final thought on these matters: as for myself, as long as parents are hot-saucing children, keeping them in cages, limiting their food, making them sleep outdoor without blankets in winter, or whipping them with plumbing supply line, I am not going to worry too much about a limited and possibly appropriate use of mild physical punishment. My energies are going to be directed toward stopping treatment that is, frankly, torture. Admirers of Alice Miller’s position can either join me or continue to enjoy their ideological purity. I hope it will be the former, because there is a lot of thinking and a lot of work to be done.

Alice Miller, Physical Punishment, Ideology, and Reasoned Approaches to Parenting

On a number of recent occasions, I’ve come up against statements and ideas ascribed to Alice Miller, the late Swiss psychoanalyst. As Neil Samuels noted in a comment on one of my posts about physical punishment, Miller attributed war and other distressing actions and propensities of adults to their childhood experiences of punishment. I haven’t read all of Miller’s work, most of which is popularized and non-empirical in nature, but my impression from what I have read is that she argues strongly against all forms of physical punishment and categorizes together everything from a smack with the open hand onward, considering all of these behaviors to be deleterious. (If I’m wrong about this, no doubt I will receive speedy correction.)

I think there are many reasons to keep physical punishment to a minimum. An obvious one is that an incensed parent with an angry child may lose control and do physical harm. A less obvious one is that physical punishment may simply escalate everyone’s anger and make it more difficult to get the situation under control. Physical punishment may also substitute ineffectively for explanations and advice about how to behave. (There are a dozen more good reasons, but that’s not my topic just now.)

My concern in this post is to focus on the outcomes for parent and child of choosing one or another among the range of disciplinary methods, including both rewards and punishments of various kinds. (Negative reinforcement is not the same as punishment and does not lend itself well to use in everyday situations.) I think it is possible to consider what methods work best in specific circumstances and to use a reasoned approach to choice.

Miller, on the other hand, is primarily an ideologue. Her claims are based on a belief system that lacks empirical support, as are the claims of her companion-in-ideology, Lloyd DeMause, one of the founders of the “psychohistory” school that claims profound, although undemonstrated, effects of prenatal events. DeMause, Miller, and others have concluded that cause-and-effect relationships are plausible, not in the light of empirical work about families, but on the basis of statements by people like Frank Lake and Stanislav Grof, whose understanding of early development is founded on experiences with LSD. (These people were also strong though perhaps indirect influences on Nancy Verrier.)

I argue that an empirical, pragmatic approach is a more desirable way to think how people should act toward children, than an ideological one is. My reasoning is that there are multiple factors that help determine the outcome of any adult actions toward children, so it is unlikely that we can name a single factor and a single mechanism that have the same outcome for all children in all circumstances. An ideological approach argues that the truth is the same for all.

Here are some factors that seem to make a difference to children’s reactions to physical punishment:

1. Cultural differences: A smack on the bottom has a different meaning and therefore effect on children who have often seen other children get smacked than it does for those who have never seen such a thing and/or have heard it mentioned in discreet, horrified tones. There are great differences between cultural groups in the use of and attitudes toward physical punishment. Some groups would never dream of striking a child or using any other physical approach. Others, like many African-Americans, believe it is the obligation of parents, grandparents, and close family friends to employ physical punishment regularly. When a social group approves of the use of physical punishment, the children of that group do not respond as negatively to their experiences of mild punishment as do children whose group strongly disapproves.


2. Age: As a general rule, Europeans and North Americans believe that physical punishment is inappropriate for infants under a year of age and for older children and adolescents, but that well-thought-out physical punishments may be effective and suitable for many children from about age 2 to age 5. The reasoning about infants is that these children are too young to understand rules or to be expected to control their own behavior much, and that punishment may teach them to avoid adults at a time in development when their socialization depends on a lot of contact. The thinking about older children and adolescents is that physical punishment offers them challenges to physical fighting such that the child may win, or the combat become so serious that someone is hurt or the child runs away from home; in addition, many laws about child abuse would classify physical punishment of adolescents as abusive in itself.

Preschoolers, on the other hand, are capable of learning rules and regulating their behavior within reason, but are impulsive, over-confident, and able to hurt themselves and others unless carefully trained. Careful supervision and cue-ing of behavior can do a great deal, but many preschoolers show undesirable behaviors (like running into the street, or hitting each other, pets, baby brothers or sisters, or their parents) that are quite difficult to correct without the use of physical punishment. Balancing the possible consequences of those present behaviors against the long-term effect of punishment suggests that for everyone’s health and safety, brief, mild physical punishment may be an excellent choice. Many parents today attempt to use “time-out” methods but are unable to keep the child in the “time-out” chair or room; physical punishment as a back-up on a few occasions is likely to make it possible to transition to “time-out” alone.


3. Temperament: Children’s constitutionally-determined personalities may have strong influences on their responses to physical punishment. Some children have relatively little response to pain or other strong stimuli, and in my opinion should NOT be physically punished because of the temptation the adult may feel to escalate the punishment until the child seems to notice it. Others are extremely sensitive, and in fact are so overwhelmed by almost any kind of punishment that they forget what they are being punished for. However, some are attentive to physical sensations, but at the same time can notice and understand the adult’s admonitions and learn effectively what to do or not to do.

I believe these differences in children’ s responses to physical punishment, when coupled with the complete lack of anything but proof by assertion that physical punishment experiences are responsible for war and other social evils, lead us to only one sensible conclusion. That conclusion is that no single rule about punishment of children is applicable across the board. Parents need to consider carefully the characteristics of a child, the family’s social group and attitudes, and the goals they are trying to achieve through punishment or any other action. (This consideration, of course, has to happen during a calm time, not as the child pulls away from the parent and heads into traffic again.) The sense of righteousness one receives from ideology is much stronger than a reasoned approach can give, but I would suggest that a pragmatic, reasoned parenting mode is far more likely to produce happy children, families, and societies.