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starlingx's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
0.25
As is the nature of writing about trauma, there are several candid retellings of experienced trauma. This books was recommended as an alternative to “The Body Keeps Score” yet is just as offensive in my opinion.
The writing structure is in disarray and very much reads as a typed out psychology discussion group.
The author theories and attempts to make connections to various artists, writers, and several war criminals with their potentially abusive childhoods. This isn’t lightly addressed, this is complied in the first portion of the book.
I do think there are some thought provoking aspects, many of the taboo subjects are overdue to be discussed, however the layout of the book and the constant shifting between fictional experiences and true lived experiences is too much for me.
The writing structure is in disarray and very much reads as a typed out psychology discussion group.
The author theories and attempts to make connections to various artists, writers, and several war criminals with their potentially abusive childhoods. This isn’t lightly addressed, this is complied in the first portion of the book.
I do think there are some thought provoking aspects, many of the taboo subjects are overdue to be discussed, however the layout of the book and the constant shifting between fictional experiences and true lived experiences is too much for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Grief, Mental illness, Alcoholism, Panic attacks/disorders, Drug use, Eating disorder, Pedophilia, Incest, and Suicidal thoughts
matchamelon's review against another edition
3.0
I found this book on TikTok from people saying that "The Body Keeps the Score" stole from Alice Miller's work. As someone who read "The Body Keeps the Score" because it was recommended by all of my professors in grad school, I of course wanted to check it out. I can honestly say that in my opinion that these are two completely separate works. Parents abusing their children and it's effects are not an exclusive or new idea. Both books have some good but different information. I personally prefer "The Body Keeps the Score", I felt like there were more things that could applied in therapy with it. So I see "The Body Never Lies" as a more informational/conceptual book.
ebonyutley's review against another edition
4.0
Miller’s The Body Never Lies was much more accessible than Prisoners of Childhood. It’s still instructive about what makes a good therapist, but this time the advice pertains to individuals looking for a therapist as well as practitioners. Instructive is a good word for the text in general. Miller offers really simple instructions for those who were abused and humiliated in childhood: “stop loving and forgiving those who hurt you.” Super simple. Widly radical. She argues that the 4th commandment is insurance for old people that might have been necessary in biblical times but is no longer required. Forgiveness never healed anyone. It’s a moral imperative that we can choose not to follow. In fact, she urges us not to follow it to cure physical ailments. The body’s memory is perfect—a physical catalogue of all the mind has forgotten—and if we fail to listen to it then inexplicable, undiagnosable well as common ailments including cancer will rack our bodies until we address the childhood origins of pain. It’s not hatred that makes us ill but the repression of inaccessible, unexpressed emotions. In part one, she surveys the lives of famous people with tortured unresolved childhoods who died young. She writes about the morality that constrains us to physical llness in part two and ends with part three—a rather odd fictional, personal diary of an anorexic girl who refuses to eat because her parents form of nourishment is torture. Despite the shift in presentation for part three, this little book is a gem that dares you to listen, not to her, but to your body. Because the body, unlike the mind, and unlike people who failed to protect you—never lies.