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matchamelon's review
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
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.
farrahrotman's review
3.0
i love alice miller but the insight in this text is simply not in proportion to the amount of pages. too little content for a book. maybe a short collection of essays would’ve been a better frame
deadflagblues's review
5.0
A more useful version of the Body Keeps Score. At least it was for me, YMMV
socrates90's review
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
annakoski's review
3.0
While I agree with the overall message of the book: you do not need to forgive those who hurt you and society has an unhealthy obsession with forgiveness and irs causing physical illnesses or ailments. It wasnt written the greatest. The text had a very disjointed feel to it, a lot of what was said seemed to be forced together in a way that did not fit. Added to that, there wasnt anything entire groundbreaking or new to the thesis of this book.