Soul Murder Revisited: Thoughts about Therapy, Hate, Love, and Memory

by Leonard Shengold

Since the publication of Dr. Leonard Shengold’s highly acclaimed book Soul Murder in 1989, issues of child abuse have become the subject of much public debate. Now Dr. Shengold offers his latest reflections on the circumstances in which the willful abuse and neglect of children arises and on the consequences of this abuse, providing compelling examples from literature and from clinical material.

Dr. Shengold describes various types of child abuse as well as techniques of adaptation and denial by soul murder victims. He explores the psychopathology of soul murder, addressing such issues as instinctual drives, aggression and sexuality, love, and narcissism. In a chapter on sadomasochism, he relates the story of Algernon Swinburne―who may have been a victim of soul murder―and he tells about Elizabeth Bishop, who, like Swinburne, has been able to use artistic creativity to transcend the damage sustained by early childhood trauma. Finally he offers suggestions about therapy for the abused and neglected, emphasizing the need to restore the power to care about and love others in order to ameliorate soul murder’s narcissistically regressive effects.

Genres: Psychology

337 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

You cannot treat severe trauma with Freud. It just doesn't work.

I really did not like the author - his attitude towards his patients struck me as insufferably condescending and superior, and he did that extremely problematic thing of conflating trauma with the kinds of problematic but not traumatic early childhood experiences that Freud considers so formative. He does this both by describing all such problematic experiences as trauma, and also by repeatedly referring to sexual abuse as "seduction". Though I know this terminology has its precedents, I still found it extremely unsettling.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a psychoanalyst, Shengold delves into the most private, disturbing aspects of human lives. The ways he goes about this might be objectionable to some, but I feel he's trying to make us all feel responsibility for each other. I gained a lot from reading the book.

[shannon]

yeah. too freudian psychoanalyisis. not all that useful when you do short term crisis with children and parents who lack the ego functioning for analyisis. i quit.

[Daniel Rickenbach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shengold knows nothing and knows all! He is a giant of a thinker and anchors science with reality. His work is timeless.

[Ella]

nb: there are two editions, this being the updated one.