Patricia Humphreys 6/20/2010 7:46:40 PM Hi Daniel. I just wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart and congratulate you on your documentary Take These Broken Wings. It was incredibly helpful to me and my daughter, who has recently been diagnosed with Schizophrenia. She has been told she has a hopeless brain disease and will need to take mind disabling medication for life, \"like insulin for diabetes.\" The ubiquitous medical model in North America is a hard thing to oppose. I think the public desperately needs to know more about the history of the treatment of mental illness, the amazingly optomistic long-term recovery rates of those who are not medicated, and the dubious benefits of (not to mention skyrocketing profit from) neuroleptic drugs. I hope that your film will receive much wider distribution. Many many thanks!~ P. Carrie 6/18/2010 8:32:03 PM I\'m so interested in your views Daniel. I\'m reading Toward Truth just now and would really like to know what you think about \'psychopathy\'. My very limited understanding of psychopaths is that they make some kind of decision, from their early and severe wounding, to only care about themself. I don\'t believe what they do IS that, I think, it might be part of what they believe. Isn\'t this kind of closing off from people a rejection of humanity? I think lots of supposedly non-psychopaths do this too. I wonder about the extent of the turning away from others that you advocate. It troubles me. Cheryl Jonas 6/10/2010 1:51:02 AM Hi Daniel. We met serendiptiously when you were filming at Windhorse. You and I drove over to a \"voices\" meeting and had a great conversation along the way.You gave me the name of a good alternative psychiatrist in Chicago and I am hoping you can re-send that information, since I can\'t find it. I hope your travels and the sites your are filming are being all that you hoped. Emily 5/29/2010 6:23:03 AM Hi Daniel- Thank you for your contribution of this website to these important issues. I like much of what you write. I am also someone who has remained childless (and celibate in recent years) trying to get clean of my traumatized past through therapy and a lot of reading, including Alice Miller. Two things I wanted to mention: 1. I found studying the broader social system of patriarchy (where men control the resources and compete with each other for them and are basically raised to ignore their emotions in furtherance of this \"heroism\" which often includes risking their lives, and where women become objectified and are valued only for fertility) enormously helpful in resolving some issues of why so many people have difficult childhoods. I would recommend Terry Real\'s book \"I Don\'t Want to Talk About It,\" any of Michael Kimmel\'s books, and Alan Johnson\'s book \"The Gender Knot.\" I am a woman and have been interested in trying to find a hetero man (perhaps a co-author) who might be interested in cooperatively looking at the contemporary issues associated with how patriarchy is sort-of unraveling to more equality of the sexes and how this relates to the possibility of reducing trauma in the culture. 2. You talk a lot about seeking perfection and purity. I am not sure that this is necessary? While having standards is important and you include some important standards in your various articles posted here, many of which I agreed with, I think sometimes a calling these standards \"good enough\" is a little easier to swallow? Isn\'t perfectionism a classic coping mechanism (almost an addiction in itself) for trauma survivors? Diane Craig 5/25/2010 6:36:01 AM Please take into consideration the following: Alcoholics Anonymous has helped hundreds of thousands of alcoholics recover from what seemed to be a hopeless situation and from which they were dying. I am one of those. And though I agree that the alcoholic could further their spiritual enlightenment, there are many, like myself who have discovered not only spiritual awakenings by working the 12 steps but enhancement through other self-help programs. Self-mastery is one by which I have found much discipline. But I would plead with you not to take anything away from AA by discouraging the alcoholic from going to seek the beginnings of what may be the best part of life, sobriety, and allow the alcoholic to take what they need and put the rest aside for future reference. You could be saving a life simply by stating the number of people who have found a hopeful beginning there. The book Alcoholics Anonymous states that they only touched the surface. This leaves the alcoholic plenty of room to seek enlightenment in whatever manner they see fit. Personally, I was raised in a loving home where I recieved lots of hugs and kisses and attention. It was just never enough. The very first time I drank, I lost all control over how much I was to drink that night. No one poured it down my throat, no one forced me to drink and we were not playing a card game. I just drank til all the booze was gone. Being alcoholic simply means that the person has lost the control to stop drinking and then they \"think\" they can control it next time. Please re-think what kind of influence you might be placing on the next would be alcoholic who reads your pages. You could be saving a life or detrimental to another. Rosas - 45 y.o. NYC resident 5/24/2010 5:25:30 AM Hello Daniel, great website. Also if not for your website links, I would still have not known of Alice Miller\'s passing just a month ago. I support your work and efforts and undoubtedly appreciate all that you have done and are doing. I need to spend more time reading and thinking on your site. Thanks again. curious n 5/18/2010 3:23:29 PM Hi I just wanted to share my deep saddness at Alice Miller\'s death. She was a great woman who dared to voice the unspeakable truth of the suffering many children have/had at the hands of their parents. The very hands of the people who were meant to love and protect their children. I hope she is resting in peace. The world is a sadder place without her. daxe 5/15/2010 8:07:47 PM Thanks for the \"Critique of Alice Miller\" youTube videos. I would lie to caution against your conclusion to not have children unless you have resolved all your issues. I haven\'t, and i do have two small children. I waited a long time (resolving many issues), but when would i ever know if i was done? Can you be sure about yours? Anyway, it was good for me to realize fully that my parents are children themselves. I almost want to say: parents are children and children are parents. You seem to seek such purity. That is dangerous. It is exactly what Hitler did, isn\'t it? Could you say when you are pure enough to have a child? Could you have told me not to? curious n 5/12/2010 4:14:17 PM Hi daniel, Thanks for being a sane mirror in an insane world. I agree with most things you write, however hearing how you have been able to work for the last 10 years, do music, make films, have some healthy relationships with supportive friends, highlights something for me... I do not want to make light of all your suffering in your child, however I would like to suggest some of us have been so traumatised that we have not been able to function in the world as you have clearly been able to. it is also extremly difficult if not impossible to cut from all romantic links, if the only relationship you have is your partner. And if leaving your partner, cuts you off from all human contact, then that is an isolation that no human being should have to expereince. I do not say it is a bad idea to cut off romantic relationships, but some people have been so traumatised that it would take years, if not their whole life before significant healing can take place. I need human contact and friendship even if it is distorted through the lense of my trauma! I want to end by saying thankyou for all your affirming work and revelations. I love your songs and in part they make me cry when I need to, get in touch with my anger to action things, but most of all they help in giving me the courage to know the work I am doing on myself is worthwhile, within a world that relates to me as unhealthy for daring to look at my childhood in such detail. It is mostly a lonely endeavour, so it is good and esential to have a mirror that reflects my struggles, and reflects much of my sensed truth. Daniel LeBlanc 5/11/2010 9:27:51 PM Hey, Daniel. I\'ve been enjoying you\'re videos and essays on here, in part because I may have finally met someone as bitter about their childhood as me! \"Mom\" was a manipulative control freak that had me as a servant-pet, and \"Dad\" was a workaholic, TV-aholic who barely spoke to me. I\'ve gone most of my my life untrustful of the world and most people, and I often regret having been born. I\'m currently trying to overcome the bitterness steaming from the realization of what has happened to me; have you worked past this yet? Also, I was wondering if you\'ve ever considered looking into Ayahuasca shamanism as a cataylst for growth and healing?? I\'m very interested in this approach and hope to make a trip out to Peru next year. Thanks, and keep up the evolving positive growth. Karen Caswell 4/25/2010 4:58:44 AM Hi Daniel. I just finished reading A Way Out of Madness and want to say THANK YOU in such a big way!!! Wow! Amazing, much needed book! I feel inspired and validated, not only as a newbie therapist, but as a person who can relate to so many of the experiences & challenges described in this book. I\'ve even shared one chapter with a support group I facilitate. Also, I truly appreciate your story and how accessible and open you allow yourself to be...in the book and here on the website. It brought tears to my eyes many times...and simultaneously I feel overjoyed by the fact that you are in this world, touching other peoples\' lives. When you look inside I hope you love what you find! Many blessings ~K Ian 4/15/2010 6:28:43 AM Daniel, can I ask what methods of self-reflection you yourself used to get to where you are today? Perchance would it have been some form of Vipassana meditation? Also I\'d like to make the suggestion that you implement some sort of search function on your site, so those seeking specific passages can find them more readily. Glorioso 4/12/2010 1:20:10 AM Whew, that below was a tense moment. I came across your site as I was looking for more on Alice Miller. I was so sad about my family history, all the loses and survival guilt as I am the last one. My kids are doing really well and I have the time now to do the work I have always needed to do but did not have the time to do. Alice Miller\'s work makes the most sense in understanding how I experienced a really rough childhood. Being closer to her age than yours, I wonder if in some ways, I may have some of the same limitations. I have changed so much over the years as I met certain milestones in my life. I worked with families and their teenagers and had to walk a fine line on how I dealt with them. I found that work helped me understand some of the parents frustrations as well as the children. However, that could only take me so far in my own journey, of course and I know I have lots yet to uncover so am still interested in locating someone who uses the approach that helped you so much even if I do move beyond it (which I kind of doubt but...........) Glorioso 4/10/2010 9:09:07 PM Mom committed suicide. first brother died weighing a couple hundreds pounds over, second brother committed suicide. I became a social worker and have done a bit of childhood work but nothing this deep. Need to now at age 66, am not happy with state of internal state of affairs. Want to find a therapist that knows Ms. Millers work and can apply it. Help. Anastasia G. 3/23/2010 3:37:35 PM Hello Daniel and thank you so much for your videos (youtube) and your words. My na me is Anastasia i am an actress in Greece and i study psychodrama. i ve been doing all kinds of psychotherapy since the age of 21. It s been some days I started reading a book of Alice Miller having so many questions on my traumas and i steped by chance on your videos i just want to send a big thanks for your ideas,words,feelings. Your work will be a tool for me in my way of self therapy,,,,,i am in a moment where i change my life in lots of ways and its very important to find people and share my desires with....and my desire now is to be able to look inside and put in value all the elements of the inner self,,,,,,painful or not ,,,i decided that that s the only way ! again thank you so much ,, Anastasia Rich Hansen, M.D. 3/22/2010 9:01:07 PM What an impressive and amazing Youtubes of yours and Dr. Ross i\'ve just viewed for the first time today. Your web site is amazing. I\'ve been dealing with and treating schizophrenic people all of my seven decades of good living. ... i do wonder why you switched from practicing as a psychotherapist just this month. len 3/18/2010 11:10:46 PM Overpopulation is a myth, complete leftist propaganda. how many people are you willing to killl to save the Earth? Scarley 3/8/2010 10:51:59 PM I\'m a psychology student, and I just read your \'32 reasons why the Schizophrenogenic Mother is incorrect\' and to be perfectly honest, I\'m not entirely sure If you were aiming for humour, or just general off the wall wackiness. Some of your points are correct in a way, yet some of the other less \'blatant\' ones are incorrect. Daniel Mackler 3/5/2010 1:33:39 PM I want to thank everyone who has written on this guestbook! I love reading the comments---always good fuel for thought---and it\'s nice to get feedback too!! So appreciated! Also, this week I ended my psychotherapy practice---and began a new chapter of my life. Everything is changing for me, in a big way---all in a good direction, I hope! ---Daniel Daniel Mackler 3/5/2010 1:30:30 PM Hi Dan (Dan Philips), Good comments---thanks. I guess I should be more clear about why I linked to NAMI\'s definition of schizophrenia. NAMI is a backward, Big-Pharma-money-taking organization and yes, their definition of schizophrenia is very bad---surface and neurologically-oriented. I linked to it almost tongue-in-cheek to show how mainstream psychiatry views schizophrenia---in order to contrast with my point of view. But my error is that perhaps not everyone will understand that I explicitly attack NAMI\'s point of view and do not agree with it. (In fact, my movie directly criticizes NAMI.) So I should probably change the way I link if I give the wrong impression. Thanks for clueing me in---because others have probably wondered the same thing and just not told me. all the best, Daniel