Yale University Press Description: The author says he is fond of meandering designs. His book
shows his preference. It is a meandering course through the lush groves of
psychoanalytic speculations and literary fictions. The meandering starts with a
loose association of the term soul murder and child abuse, wanders off into
brainwashing and some possible consequences, then revives the philosophical
dispute of the 18th century English idealists and empiricists and the question
of what is historical truth, then takes an excursion into literature, specifically
Sophocles, Orwell,
Dickens, Chekov, and Kipling. Throughout this stroll, a case of incest between a
mother and son where Shengold was analyst for the son pops up. Finally, there is
a brief trample through analytic treatment for adults who were sexual abuse
victims in childhood. Discussion: This book will be valued only by those who are already committed to the system of Freudian thought and the process of psychoanalysis. Once inside the system, like Marxism, nothing can falsify it. Everything, no matter what, serves only to establish the system. For those who have made the choice, this book may be a minor intellectual tour de force, if for no other reason than that Shengold finds a way to bring together Sophocles and Kipling. If a reader can suspend critical acumen and rational thought, the book may prove to be diverting and of some fascination for the boldness and self assurance with which Shengold makes great leaps of faith and logic. There are 302 references in the bibliography. All but eight are to psychoanalytic literature and journals or the literary productions of the authors whose work Shengold uses to illuminate the dark world of child abuse. Only one of the eight nonanalytic references appears to be to a possible quantifiable work and that is Bender and Blau's 1937 study of incest victims. Anyone interested in factual data will not find it here. Some of the unfounded dogmas advanced in the early days of attention to child abuse are simply accepted and repeated as facts. Parents who abuse their children were themselves abused as children by their parents. The Freudian idea of the mind as a storehouse of every and all sense impressions received is used to support the dogma that children must be believed at all costs. Reliving the past cures present problems. The discussion of treatment techniques has a single idea — patience. To be cured of the effects of child abuse takes years of analytic work and any changes are slow and in small increments. The curative power of transference is upheld but the analyst is warned about the possible dangers of having the hatred originating in the experience of abuse by parents transferred to the present analyst. There is a compassionate and tender concern for those who have been victims of childhood sexual abuse. The difficulty is that like the Greek tragedies, good people can set out with good purpose, but the outcome is evil. Reviewed by Ralph Underwager, Institute for Psychological Therapies, Northfield, Minnesota.
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