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October 24, 1977. KASPAR HAUSER AND SOUL MURDER. Leonard Shengold, M.D.
Defining soul murder as the purposeful destruction, by deprivation or overstimulation, of the essential human qualities of the growing child (referring to the sense of reality and identity and the capacity for thought and emotion), Dr. Shengold cited the celebrated story of Kaspar Hauser to illuminate this phenomenon. He pointed to relevant portions of our understanding of ego development and object relations theory which tend to make different aspects of this bizarre story credible. The discrepancy between advances in ego development and instinctual development was discussed in terms of the features of the substitute mothering involved, which permitted advance through Mahler's "practicing subphase" but failure of "rapprochement." The resultant superego developments and related obsessional characteristics were climaxed by Kaspar Hauser's characterologic regression after his later traumas. Dr. Shengold connected these observations with the dehumanization and de-individuation that threaten our culture today and which, through authoritarianism and the breakdown of the nuclear family, result in an increasing number of patients whose conflicts are based on what others have done to them.