Beyond Blame


Book Description

Through an examination of thirty-five major inquiries into child sexual abuse, the authors identify common themes with important implications for professional practice.




Soul Murder Revisited


Book Description

Annotation A decade after the publication of his highly acclaimed book Soul Murder, Dr. Leonard Shengold reflects anew on the circumstances and the consequences of willful abuse and neglect of children. With compelling examples from literature and from clinical cases, Dr. Shengold describes techniques of adaptation and denial by victims, the psychopathology of soul murder, and therapy techniques for restoring the capacity to love.




Child Welfare Revisited


Book Description

Why are there proportionally more African American children in foster care than white children? Why are white children often readily adoptable, while African American children are difficult to place? Are these imbalances an indication of institutional racism or merely a coincidence? In this revised and expanded edition of the classic volume, Child Welfare, twenty-one educators call attention to racial disparities in the child welfare system by demonstrating how practices that are successful for white children are often not similarly successful for African American children. Moreover, contributors insist that policymakers and care providers look at African American family life and child-development from a culturally-based Africentric perspective. Such a perspective, the book argues, can serve as a catalyst for creativity and innovation in the formulation of policies and practices aimed at improving the welfare of African American children. Child Welfare Revisited offers new chapters on the role of institutional racism and economics on child welfare; the effects of substance abuse, homelessness, HIV/AIDS, and domestic violence; and the internal strengths and challenges that are typical of African American families. Bringing together timely new developments and information, this book will continue to be essential reading for all child welfare policymakers and practitioners.




Sex Abuse Hysteria


Book Description




Lost Innocents


Book Description

Lost Innocents is a follow-up to Beyond Blame: Child Abuse Tragedies Revisited (1993). In their new book, Peter Reder and Sylvia Duncan use the same process of case analysis and apply it to a more representative sample of cases. They describe the theoretical basis and method of the study and its findings, before going on to discuss their practical implications, and their opinions about the case review process itself. Finally, the authors discuss whether child abuse fatalities can be predicted or prevented.




Soul Murder


Book Description

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.




Child Abuse Revisited


Book Description

This text presents a re-assessment of child abuse work since the early 1970s. It draws on evidence from a wide range of areas: recent social and political history, changes in child-care law, the theoretical base for much child abuse work, and the professional development of social work.




Innocence Revisited


Book Description

"Innocence Revisited: A Tale in Parts" is not just another memoir by another victim of child sexual abuse. It is an intensely personal story which skilfully weaves a tale back and forth through time and space, capturing the confusion and despair of both the child and the adult as she searches for certainty in a world of shadows and falsehood. We journey with Cathy as she goes in search of ten lost years of her childhood, feeling her suffering acutely but also celebrating her triumphs. It is also a vivid portrayal both of the intricate psychological contortions of a child towards psychic survival and of the mental processes of the adult towards a full life. This book is a message of hope for those staring death in the face, those who cannot see a way forward into a life of health, those who daily revisit the terror and abject cruelty of their childhoods and those who fear they are losing their minds and descending into madness. It is a landmark book – a roadmap to health for those who feel isolated, lost and terrified and a reflective guide for the health professionals who work with them. In telling her story Cathy displays how an analytical psychotherapeutic process can guide a trauma survivor from confusion through chaos to stability and understanding. The story ends with a quiet sense of hope as Cathy, having integrated those ten forgotten childhood years, enjoys enriched relationships with her family and friends, and an untapped enthusiasm for the next phase of her life.







Secrets and Silence


Book Description

The child sexual abuse scandal in the English county of Cleveland in the 1980s was a defining moment but not the scandal we were led to believe it was. Acclaimed journalist Beatrix Campbell has uncovered government documents that show how medical evidence of childhood rape identified by pioneering paediatricians was deemed credible but ‘dangerous’ – it was more important to save money than save children. This book reveals how this secret has framed policy making and public opinion and the consequences it has had for children, professionals, justice and the state. The deaths of ‘national treasures’ Sir Jimmy Savile and Sir Cyril Smith led to a torrent of evidence of childhood suffering, the discovery of widespread sexual exploitation and institutional abuse across the world – all in plain sight. The Cleveland children have remained in the shadows. Now, for the first time, a Cleveland child delves into her records and shares her story.