# Quote — Alice Miller, Breaking Down The Wall Of Silence

> It is the resentment of the past, we are told, that is making us ill. In those by now familiar groups in which addicts and their relations go into therapy together, the following belief is invariably expressed. Only when you have forgiven your parents for everything they did to you can you get well. Even if both your parents were alcoholic, even if they mistreated, confused, exploited, beat, and totally overloaded you, you must forgive.

- Author: [Alice Miller](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alice-miller.md)
- Book: [Breaking Down The Wall Of Silence](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alice-miller/breaking-down-the-wall-of-silence.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alice_Miller_(psychologist)#Breaking_Down_the_Wall_of_Silence_(1991)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/alice-miller/breaking-down-the-wall-of-silence/it-is-the

## More from this book

> Hard as it is to believe, in the entire world there is not a single faculty in which a degree is offered in the study of psychic injuries in childhood.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alice-miller/breaking-down-the-wall-of-silence/hard-as-it.md)

> Parents are indeed capable of routinely torturing their children without anyone interceding.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alice-miller/breaking-down-the-wall-of-silence/parents-are-indeed.md)

> Psychoanalysis does not distort the truth by accident. It does so by necessity. It is an effective system for the suppression of the truth about childhood, a truth feared by our entire society. Not surprisingly, it enjoys great esteem among intellectuals... Fear of the truth about child abuse is a leitmotif of nearly all forms of therapy known to me.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alice-miller/breaking-down-the-wall-of-silence/psychoanalysis-does-not.md)