“For your own good!” What child has not heard it, what parent has not said it. But how innocent is this phrase? Why is it reasonable to expect a child to accept without complaint and even perceive as a benefit the physical or emotional violence they suffer from their parents, when we would never demand something so unreasonable from an adult?

And what happens later, when that “good child” who has suppressed their forbidden feelings (anger, hatred, rage) for years grows up? In this book, Alice Miller exposes the educational methods of recent centuries and subsequently engages with the childhood of the drug addict Christiane F., the dictator Adolf Hitler, the child murderer Jürgen Bartz, as well as some artists (Sylvia Plath, Paul Klee, Peter Handke, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, etc.), revealing to us what exactly hides beneath the benevolent cloak of the term “education."

At the same time, demonstrating how whatever is instilled in the child during the early years of life impacts the entire society. Addressing not only parents but, primarily, the child that every adult hides within, she shows us that the key to escaping the vicious circle of “education” is right before our eyes. All that is needed is the will to take it into our own hands.