ABSTRACT
The patient's case was treated by William Greer, who consulted regularly with Vamik D. Volkan over the course of the patient’s five-year psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Psychiatrists called him “Dogman” because he often wore a dog costume at company functions and, at times, behaved like one. The syndrome exhibited by people like Dogman which is rooted in massive psychic trauma in childhood has been referred to as soul murder by Shengold. Professionals' patient’s soul was indeed “murdered” in his infancy and early childhood, experience psychiatrists believe that formed the core of his “infantile psychotic self”, a term coined by Volkan. Much has been written in the psychoanalytic literature about childhood sexual abuse and its pathogenic influence on the mental development of its victim. In contrast, despite the prevalence across many historical eras and cultures of paedophilia, there has been a paucity of published case reports of the psychodynamics of its perpetrators by psychoanalytic investigators.
