He attended Syracuse University for one semester before transferring to Columbia College, where he studied under Lionel Trilling, who sparked his interest in Freud and psychoanalysis.
[1] He joined the United States Army during World War II and served in India as a radio operator and then as a clerk in North Africa and Saudi Arabia.
He then returned to Columbia after the war, graduating in 1947, and received his medical degree from Long Island College of Medicine, now known as SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University.
[1] He started career as a training analyst at the institute, as well as its director from 1975 to 1978, and taught psychiatry at New York University.
[5] Harold F. Blum said that Shengold's work had been valuable in fathoming the psychological depth of childhood abuse and identifying the key role of unconscious fantasies in understanding traumatic experiences.