Stephen Black wrote: <<I've discovered a website of Allen Esterson (at http://www.human-nature.com/esterson/index.html) where he takes on Masson's claims regarding Freud's seduction theory. The discussion provides another good example of Freud's prediliction for revision without regret. Allen notes that Freud first tells us that his patients were "seduced" (raped!) by all sorts of people, and then tells us it was almost always the father. How can you trust someone capable of such revision of his primary data?>>
The story of the revision of the primary data started one step earlier than Stephen indicates. Although in his later reports Freud wrote that female patients in the mid-1890s had "told" him they had been "seduced" by their father, in the 1896 "Aetiology of Hysteria" paper he reported that "before they come for analysis the patients know nothing about these [infantile sexual] scenes", that they "have no feeling of remembering" them, and assured him “emphatically of their unbelief" (1896, S.E. 3, p.204). In other words, it was Freud who insisted that they had been sexually abused in early childhood, and the patients who denied it. In a letter to his confidant Wilhelm Fliess, Freud reported how he analytically reconstructed an infantile "sexual scene" involving fellatio from symptoms such as eczema around the mouth. When the patient rejected his scenario Freud "threatened to send her away" to induce her compliance. Stephen wrote: <<Allen notes that Freud first tells us that his patients were "seduced" (raped!) by all sorts of people, and then tells us it was almost always the father. How can you trust someone capable of such revision of his primary data?>> Freud by no means claimed that the "sexual scenes" he had analytically 'uncovered' were generally rape. In one paper he wrote that the supposed infantile experiences were "submitted to with indifference or with a small degree of annoyance or fright". His inconsistency on the question of the supposed abusers is explicable by the fact that in his reconstructions reported in 1896 he kept to the categories reported in the contemporary literature on child abuse (eg, Krafft-Ebing), then his story changed when his account required fathers (eg, for his later Oedipal explanation of his alleged findings in 1895-96). The seduction theory debate raises the tricky issue that College lecturers and instructors don't have the time to check out original sources outside of their field of interest. Masson's version of events seems plausible, but it is erroneous in almost every respect, not least because it is based on the false traditional story of the episode which for most of the twentieth century was taken as historical fact. Everybody thinks Freud put forward the seduction theory because so many of his (female) patients were telling him that they had been sexually abused in childhood. The truth is that before he came up with the theory in October 1895 he had not claimed a single case of having uncovered repressed memories of infantile abuse, then in papers sent off for publication only four months later he was claiming to have uncovered such abuse for all his 16 patients. In other words, the theory came first, and claims of one hundred percent 'corroboration' promptly followed. Stephen wrote: "And Allen, if you're still out there, I notice an absence of any background information, either in a signature file or on your website. Care to tell us something about yourself?" My academic background is a degree in physics, and I've lectured on physics and maths in Further Education (now retired!). I've been involved with Freud scholarship for nearly two decades, and have published one book "Seductive Mirage" (1993) and some papers. <<And may I please have a copy of your "History of the Human Sciences" paper?>> (on Masson and the seduction theory). It's on its way! If anyone else wants a copy, let me know: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Allen Esterson --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
