Soul Murder: The Effects of Childhood Abuse and Deprivation

by Leonard Shengold

To abuse or neglect a child, to deprive the child of his or her own identity and ability to experience joy in life, is to commit soul murder. Soul murder is the perpetration of brutal or subtle acts against children that result in their emotional bondage to the abuser and, finally, in their psychic and spiritual annihilation. In this compelling, disturbing, and superbly readable book, Dr. Leonard Shengold, clinical professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine, explores the devastating psychological effects of this trauma inflicted on a shocking number of children.

Drawing on a lifetime of clinical experience and wide-ranging reading in world literature, Dr. Shengold examines the ravages of soul murder in the adult lives of his patients as well as in the lives and works of such seminal writers as George Orwell, Dickens, Chekhov, and Kipling. One hopeful note in this saga of pain is that a terrible childhood can, if survived, be a source of strength, as Dr. Shengold finds in the cases of Dickens and Orwell.

Provocatively original in its approach to literature and psychology, unsettling in its vivid portrayal of the darker side of human nature, far-reaching in its conclusions, Soul Murder will stand alongside such works as Alice Miller's The Drama of the Gifted Child as one of the most important studies of the psyche to appear in decades.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Mental Health, Psychoanalysis

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not finish this book, giving up around Chapter 2. I could not finish this book because it is TOXIC, and I refuse to pollute any more of my being with it. I would give infinite negative stars if I could.

Shengold argues that those of us who experienced childhood abuse, including CSA at the hands of our parents were complicit and at least partially responsible for the horrendous actions of the adults around us. IS HE KIDDING ME? If so, it is a sick, sick, sick joke, and I am totally NOT laughing.

For example:

"The sins of the father [the passing down of abuse] are laid upon the children - but not, as Freud has shown, on innocent children. Children are easy to seduce because they want to be seduced...and...children will turn to seduction, even to provocation to be beaten, to fulfill the imperative need for some parental attention" (page 4)

Further, children identify with their abusers as a defence mechanism because "the child must lose all knowledge of what has happened and responsibility for how he or she was made to feel." (page 22 - emphasis his)

So, according to Shengold children are not innocent parties to their abuse. No, they enjoy the seduction and are often the cause of the abuse because they seduce their abusers into it. Additionally, the real problem is that they (the children) are just unable to accept and try to avoid their responsibility for having caused the abuse.

And, those are just two selected sentences of many. I have not even touched the parts where children 'ask for it' because it helps to fulfill their innate sadomasochistic tendencies and fantasies (I guess that means we enjoyed being abused?!?)... and on and on. And these examples are from just the first 20-some pages of a 300-some page book.

UGH, UGH, UGH!!!

I feel sick to my stomach and spiritually polluted from having read as far as I did. I also feel angry that anyone has the unmitigated gall to blame me, and all others, for the abuse that was done to us as children. At the time, I was so young that I did not even know what sex was - how on earth could I have ever 'seduced someone' to inflict CSA and other abuses upon me?!? How could Shengold argue that anyone except the adults were responsible for the abuse?!?!?

I want to throw the book through the window and/or burn it, but the library wants it back. The shame is that I will return it to the library and some other poor person will be able to check it out and read this poison. The horrifying ideas: someone who has not moved far along enough in their healing journey will read it and believe it; OR someone who aspiring to become a therapist will read it and believe it. Either way, the abuse is perpetuated through this horrible, horrible book. Yes, the library will get it back, but perhaps there will be written-in-pen-so-they-cannot-be-erased notes in it...

UGH!!

I now have to do the cleanse of all cleanses to rid myself of the poison that is this horrible, horrible book.

[Mark Babcock · Rating 5 out of 5]

I encountered this book when I was living in a three bedroom condo with two other men named Mark, one younger, one older. I was reading the NYTimes literary supplement, like ya do, and working a long term temp job at Bank of Tokyo, loading paper into the printer, like ya do and ran across a review of this book. It described the symptoms of "soul murder" and I immediately thought, well I've got those symptoms. I had never considered myself anything but lucky and often chafed at people complaining about their upbringing. But read this book I did. It had an interesting affect. It is not a case history of anyone. It is the good doctor, a famous sought after Manhattan psychiatrist/analyst applying his trade to literary persons. I do not remember a single thing about what he said, but I did get the method about which he was applying and I could not help but apply it to a "play" I had written, called The Door. Everyone who had read the play could not understand why I had the older male character kill himself in the end. It didn't make sense, they would say! I was loading a printer when it hit me. I did not have as much of a problem with my father as with my mother. It was her I was NOT killing off at the end of the play. I almost passed out right there. The next day when I went to eat at my favorite diner, I could only eat half of what I ordered, standard. The symptoms of my eating disorder were cut in HALF. This was the beginning of my still evolving self becoming.

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

A work of empathetic genius. Describes what Joseph Conrad called in another context "The horror". This heart of darkness is as bad as it gets

[Marge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sobering and beautifully written exploration of the life-long effects of child abuse and neglect. I was especially interested in the chapters on literature, particularly in the one on Little Dorritt, which I recently read.

[Rachel Bertrand · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extremely technical study of the effects carried into adulthood by abused children. Placing the focus largely on abused men was an interesting choice, although I wonder if, in 1989, it was difficult to get women willing to be used as examples in a study about sexual abuse.

Worth a read if you’re interested in ways people are broken. I found this book in studies on serial killers, so you can certainly read it from that perspective as well.

[Patricia English · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was SSsssoooooo hard to get through, it was so technical and the words were very master class. I did manage to get through it but half of just went way above my head the other half was very sad and disturbing but also very informative. I chose to read this for my education in childhood psychology and when you are learning about such you have to take the good and bad and know how to deal with both. The signs and symptoms, I am doing this for my own study. So much of it was an eye opener and other parts where what i knew as I grew up in it.

[Antonio Gomes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Still reading. Good till now. Soon I finish I will complete my review.

[Steve Warnick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm too dumb for this book, or I'm still just really tone deaf about psychoanalysis still. I thought reading about authors would be a good way to help connect me to analysis but found myself skimming through the endless prose. Ugh.

[Soaringspirit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

[Daniel Rickenbach · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have an affinity for strong Jewish thinkers. Fraudian to the hilt, and scientifically sound. Shengold is a great in my book. A modern Fraud!