Alice Miller (psychologist)

Alice Miller, born Alicja Englard in 1923 and died in 2010, was a Polish-Swiss psychologist, psychoanalyst and writer best known for her books on parental child abuse. Born in Piotrkow Trybunalski, Poland, into an Orthodox Jewish family, she survived the Second World War under an assumed name and moved to Switzerland in 1946. She took a doctorate in philosophy, psychology and sociology in 1953, practised psychoanalysis in Zurich from 1960 to 1980, and then stopped practising and teaching in order to explore childhood systematically, becoming a critic of both Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Her 1979 book The Drama of the Gifted Child became an international bestseller, and her views on the consequences of child abuse became influential in child development, psychotherapy and trauma work.