[Mtngrl]

Dear Jackie,

I do think my facilitator, who I love and respect, was somehow triggered by what I said. I forgot how defensive people get about Alice Miller's "poisonous pedagogy" ideas, and I made the mistake of leading with that. Miller says that a lot of normal, accepted, customary child-rearing practices are toxic to children's psychological and physical development. Bringing that up is a little like throwing a hand grenade (metaphorically) into a conversation. Everyone agrees that child abuse is bad, but it's hard to get a consensus on what constitutes child abuse. We all have a vested interest in believing whatever happened in our own family was normal. For example, I knew a woman who told me she had broken several wooden spoons beating her toddler who also volunteered in a child abuse prevention program.

I think everyone in helping professions of all kinds--including me--is presumptively working out some things from childhood that were less than ideal. I was a lawyer for 28 years, then I decided to go to seminary and become a pastor. I have a genuine desire to be useful to other people and help them, but I also have always needed to be my own healer/parent/advocate/spirit guide. I won't diagnose or judge our facilitator, but she's a therapist, so. . . .

The other theory I had about what made her so uncharacteristically brusque is she might have been trying to protect one of the other women in the meeting. She does individual work with some group members, and maybe she thought one of her clients is too fragile right now to start thinking about having been abused as a child. I know it took me many, many years to peel away all my own defenses, rationalizations, and brainwashing. One of Alice Miller's books is called For Your Own Good. You get the idea.

I know this area is fraught and tender. When the student is ready the teacher appears. I think our facilitator wasn't ready, but the fact that she heard me--or heard the beginning of what I was trying to say--may prime her to be more ready to hear more at some point.

I will keep speaking the truth in love. I'm living on borrowed time here, and I want to make a difference.

Amy