Survivor guilt
| Author | Samuel Juni |
| Published date | 01 September 2016 |
| Date | 01 September 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0269758016637480 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Survivor guilt: A critical
review from the lens
of the Holocaust
Samuel Juni
Department of Applied Psychology, New York University, USA
Abstract
Survivor guilt is a construct which is ill defined in the literature. Disparate overlapping and
inconsistent formulations are outlined and critiqued from the orientation of reactions of Jewish
Holocaust victims. Utilizing the perspective of Defense Mechanism Theory, guilt is explored as an
adaptive construct of mastery and survival in extreme conditions. Aspects of culpability in guilt are
examined. Brief quotes from survivor narratives are presented to elaborate nuances of guilt
experiences. Defensive strategies which coincide with exposure to violence and suffering of others
and where there is no overt personal threat experienced by the ‘survivor’ are highlighted. A
framework is proposed sy nthesizing the variou s motifs, bridging emoti ons ranging from self-
recrimination to traumatic anxiety. The assumptions that survivor guilt is engendered by survival
and that it entails feelings of guilt are both challenged.
Keywords
Survivor guilt, Holocaust, defense mechanisms, victimization
Introduction
1
Survivor guilt is a term coined to encapsulate the ‘ever present feeling of guilt accompanied by
conscious or unconscious dread of punishment for having survived the very calamity to which their
loved ones succumbed’ (Niederland, 1961: 238). This guilt has been described as ubiquitous and
relentless among Holocaust survivors (Krystal and Niederland, 1971). While our team confirms
that guilt is unabating for those who suffer from it, we do nonetheless encounter some survivors
who do not exhibit manifest guilt.
2
Corresponding author:
Samuel Juni, Department of Applied Psychology, New York University, 246 Greene Street, 8 Floor, New York,
NY 10003, USA.
Email: sam.juni@nyu.edu
International Review of Victimology
2016, Vol. 22(3) 321–337
ªThe Author(s) 2016
Reprints and permission:
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DOI: 10.1177/0269758016637480
irv.sagepub.com
There is a dissonant perspective among clinicians regarding survivor guilt. My colleagues and I
find clinically that most Holocaust survivors tend to verbalize their guilt, but few can explain its
rationale or elaborate on their culpability. When the rationale is explicitly presented by survivors,
clinicians are often faced by a guilt reaction which makes little empirical sense:
[A] striking feature of survivor guilt is the contrast between the torment of self-blame of survivors and
their innocence by any objective criteria. For instance, Holocaust survivors often blamed themselves
for not following or saving their mur dered loved ones, when objectively they were torn apart at
gunpoint or through physical force. Children blamed themselves for the deaths of their parents while
they were hidden and survived. (Valent, 2000: 556)
Then there is the quandary of multi-determinism: patients seem to evince the same affect –
guilt – based on a variety of individual (and often idiosyncratic) explanations. The conceptual
literature on survivor guilt, similarly, offers alternate formulations which are inconsistent with
survivor guilt even as they are incongruent with each other. The overall enigmatic pattern has led
many diagnosticians to conclude that the survivors themselves are merely surmising explanations
for their reactions in a post hoc fashion, instead of actually experiencing the affect they depict.
This paper explores alternate formulations of how guilt emerges in our population, the role it
plays in the lives of survivors, whether and how guilt is adaptive, and how it interacts with other
motifs which generate personality and pathology. The elements gleaned in diagnostics and psy-
chotherapy are illustrated with brief narratives of Holocaust survivors (at times paraphrasing their
explanations) to elucidate the analyses as needed.
Guilt with and without culpability
The type of guilt most familiar to all is personal guilt, which often has an interpersonal focus. A
common theme of personal guilt among survivors is one of self-blame for the tragedies that befell
others during the Holocaust (Garwood, 1996). Somehow, they see themselves as the cause of
others’ deaths. In some cases, they will refer to actual events where others were hurt because of the
survivors’ behaviors. Here is a typical guilt statement I have often heard from survivors:
I feel guilty for the demise of others who did not make it – either because of what I did to them or
because of my failure to help them.
For some survivors, the theme of personal guilt emerges only as secondary to feeling punished:
My suffering must have been a punishment. That tells me that I am guilty of something horrible, though
I am not sure just what I did to deserve this.
A noteworthy difference between the two stances is that the former is a straightforward feeling
of guilt anchored to a specific cause, whereas the latter entails a deduction of guilt and is non-
specific. Of particular relevance to therapists, the latter is therefore difficult to counter because of
its vagueness.
I suggest that survivor guilt spans a wide spectrum, including a distinct range of ‘guilt’ devoid
of culpability. In legal terminology, culpability implies purposeful wrongdoing. A person is judged
culpable if his or her conduct is blameworthy and deserving of punishment (Crocker, 1997). I
define non-culpable guilt as blame-worthine ss which is not referenced to intention al harmful
322 International Review of Victimology 22(3)
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