Let me say this at the outset. For those of you who might be interested in reading the whole story behind The Seduction Theory Controversy and how it affected the lives of Anna Freud, Kurt Eissler, Jeffrey Masson, and the ongoing evolution of Psychoanalysis -- Janet Malcolm's book, 'In The Freud Archives' (1983, 1984, 1985) is a good, albeit very pro-Freudian biased, read.
I finished it very quickly the first time I read it in the late 1980s or early 1990s and didn't even really notice the Freudian bias. Masson's character and integrity came out intact for me as a 'rebeller against certain stagnant and/or pathological ideas and treatment procedures within Classical Psychoanalysis -- which was significantly why I wanted to delve deeper into the whole Seduction Theory controversy. Some of Masson's anti-Freudian sentiments also rang true with some issues that I was having with Freudian thinking from earlier in the 1980s.
I had never liked Freud's small paper, 'Screen Memories' (1899) since I think I first read it in the early to mid 1980s, mainly because it collided and conflicted with what I had learned from Adlerian Psychology about 'conscious early memories'. Here again, was/is a situation where the way we 'label' a particular phenomenon can make all the difference in the world as to how we interpret and evaluate the same phenomenon based on the label we attach to it.
If we call a conscious early memory a 'screen memory' like Freud did in 1899, meaning that Freud believed such a memory was both 'hiding' and 'alluding' to a deeper 'unconscious, repressed' memory that held/holds 'far greater etiological significance as far as understanding and treating the symptomology of the person's neurosis', then you pass over such a 'screen memory' very quickly, paying little, if any, attention to it, and 'go digging deeper into the client's memory bank, and/or elsewhere'.
However, if you call a conscious early memory a 'lifestyle memory' like the Adlerians do, or a 'transference memory' like I do, then you stop on a dime and pay the greatest atttention to this same memory. Because it is viewed as being much more etiologically and/or metaphorically important in terms of the essense of the person's 'neurotic difficulties'. By 'neurotic difficulties' here, I am referring to 'self-sabotaging' thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and/or behavioral symptomology that continue, over and over again, to cause 'serially repetitive' problems in living for us. Now such 'serial behavior patterns' can also be an 'obsessive driving force' behind our motivational tendencies and be the 'foundation of our creative genius' as well...or both....it all depends on how we use our particular 'neurotic transference complex' in any particular context.
Such is the case, with Freud's first conscious early memory where he burst into his parents' bedroom at the age of 3 or 4 and caught his parents having sex with each other which the little Freud could not at all comprehend at the time. Furthermore, when his father yelled at him and told him to get out of the bedroom immediately (normal for probably the way most fathers would spontaneously react in such a circumstance), the little Freud was now not only shocked beyond belief but also felt rejected (and 'shut out') by his father as well. (Years and years later, by the end of Sigmund Freud's career, the 'little Freud' turned 'old Freud', would have 'shut out a lot of historically esteemed men' in his life in the 'identification-transference rejecting style' of his father as consciously remembered in this first memory...)
That is partly why I find the following passage by Janet Malcolm at the end of Chapter 2 in, 'In The Freud Archives' particularly offensive and just blatantly biased in a Classical Freudian manner, as she seemed to be brushing off, and intellectually demeaning each and ever Freudian revisionist who accused Freud of being wrong or 'pansexual', or simply one-sided in his evolving Classical Psychoanalytic theoretical presentation...Some of these men who she is basically brushing off as having more or less 'second class intellects' compared to Freud have gone on to become some of the greatest clinical psychologists and theorists in the history of Western psychology (Adler, Jung, Rank, Sullivan, Fromm, Perls, Berne...)
In my editorial opinion, Malcolm is being extremely hypocritical when she writes:
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'Writings about psychoanalysis from outside the field (with a few notable exceptions, such as Philip Rieff's Freud: The Mind of the Moralist and Juliet Mitchell's Psychoanalysis and Feminism are as a rule, uncomprehending, naive, off the point, and biased.' (In The Freud Archives, p. 26)
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I don't think there is a sentence in Malcolm's book that is more 'uncomprehending, naive, off the point, and biased' than this one. Unless it is the passage that she follows it with... But let's stick to this sentence above for a moment.
On the one hand, Malcolm trumpets Juliet Mitchell's book Psychoanalysis and Feminism as being one of a few examples of fine work written by an author writing about Psychoanalysis from outside of Psychoanalysis.
And yet on the other hand, Malcolm is supporting the Classical Psychoanalytic status-quo and the most 'anti-feminist' idea and theory that Freud ever wrote about: specifically, that a woman entering Psychoanalysis who reported being sexually assaulted by her dad when she was a child, would have this report immediately rejected without any further discussion on the grounds of an archaic, outdated (it was never in date) narcissistic, patriarchal male chauvanist assumption, i.e., The Oedipal Complex, where Freud claimed that such reports should be immediately re-interpreted by the Psychoanalyst as a 'young girl's repressed wishful fantasy of wanting to have sex with her dad'.
Talk about hypocritical!! What I find particularly hypocritical and almost laughable are the two lines Malcolm wrote leading up to the sentence above.
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'Writers on psychoanalytic theory or history who come from other fields are regarded with suspicion and skepticism by those within the field. The worst is expected from them -- and the worst very often comes.' (In The Freud Archives, p. 26.)
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I guess Malcolm is talking about herself because she is not a trained Psychoanalyst. And she was very 'prophetic' in the passage above because Malcolm did indeed deliver 'the worst' of editiorial opinions in the passages that followed it in terms of supporting an 80 year old 'anti-feminist theoretical assumption' -- i.e., The Oedipal Complex -- that remains epistemologically and ethically very hostile and suppressive if not repressive towards female Psychoanalytic clients, particularily Classical Psychoanalytic female clients who would have the nerve to walk in there in the first place...Why? To be told that she didn't know what she was talking about, and that the Psychoanalyst 'knew better'....not to mention the fact that Janet Malcolm seemed to think that she knew better than some of the greatest psychologists and psycho-theorists who ever lived!!!
What Freudian arrogance and a 'superiority complex' coming from a woman who wasn't even trained in psychology, let alone Psychoanalyis. Janet Malcolm was far over her head in her editiorial comments that are cited here...Forgive me if I am doing an 'emotional burn' here...
Furthermore, contrary to what Malcolm suggests above about Psychoanalysts treating 'outsiders' with 'suspicion' and 'skepticism', The Psychoanalytic Establishment were obviously very happy with Malcolm's 'slant on things' in 'In The Freud Archives' because it was 'Classic' Freudian arrogance and then some... upholding the main Freudian assumption that is pathologically one-sided and needs to be squashed...i.e., The Oedipal Complex.
Meanwhile, Masson, in defense of women and children and their rights not to have their reports of their own experiences re-interpreted until they are distorted completely away from a potential childhood crime -- 'Now, now dear, you didn't really get sexually assaulted as a child; that was just your erotic fantasy of wanting to have sex with your dad'-- for rebelling against this blatant anti-feminine Freudian assumption, Masson was being metaphorically 'burned at the Psychoanalytic Stake' or 'outcast to Psychoanalytic Siberia' (at least Masson chose what I am sure is a much warmer and nicer country to live in when he moved to New Zealand) even though he was an 'Psychoanalytic insider' at the time of his being outcast, and Malcolm was the 'outsider' who thought she knew what she was writing about...
So, in effect, all of Malcolm's so-called 'logic' goes flying out the window in the face of the 'paradoxical reality of what was happening at this time'. The truth is that Malcolm's viewpoint was supported by The Psychoanalytic Establishment because it 'upheld' the legitimacy and idealization of Freud's legacy whereas Masson was being 'outcast' because his editorial opinions about The Seduction Theory -- and mainly about Freud's integrity and character, i.e., Freud's 'loss of moral courage' as speculated by Masson -- didn't...
Masson has said himself that one of the things he most regrets about his comments in the 1980s is that he did not make it VERY, VERY CLEAR that he was SPECULATING regarding his historical interpretation of 'the loss of Freud's moral courage'...I'm not sure it would have made any difference...Once the comment was out there, Masson was probably a Psychoanalytic goner...And the thing is, Masson could still be right on this interpretation. If people in power were threatening you with 'the loss of your career' if you didn't change your theoretical and/or editorial perspective, isn't it fair to say that many of you, probably most of you -- including myself -- would have 'caved'. Masson didn't cave in the 1980s, and he lost his Psychoanalytic career in the process...
Who's to say that the same thing -- the same type of coercive pressure -- wasn't facing Freud in 1896? And maybe, Freud did indeed 'ethically cave'...because he certainly steered away from the issue of 'childhood sexual abuse' for most of, if not all of, the rest of his career...It takes a lot of philosophical and ethical courage to confront social, economic, political, professional, and legal 'taboos'....Given a particular cultural climate, and our economic and professional life at stake, probably most of us would ethically cave and not confront 'organizational pathologies, corruptions, tyrannies, and poisons'. We watch this kind of stuff happen around us -- each and everyone of us -- each and every day.
So everyone was holding onto their own 'partly narcissistic, partly righteous bias', their own particular version of 'historical and theoretical truth', and Malcolm in my own editorial opinion, comes out looking very, very poor in the way that she ethically evaluated what was happening here...She couldn't see and/or report her own narcissistic-righteous bias in this whole matter if she was standing, looking at herself in the mirror...
'How do you sleep at night'? -- John Lennon
Read Janet Malcolm as she rants off her Classical Freudian diatribe...Who was coaching her? Anna Freud? Kurt Eissler? I can't believe that this stuff came from her alone...Maybe it did...
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'From the beginning of psychoanalysis to the present -- from Adler, Jung, Rank, and Stekel to Fromm, Sullivan, Horney, Alexander, and, possibly, Kohut -- there have been people within psychoanalysis to whom psychoanalysis was never really congenial. After sojourning for a while in the chilly castle of psychoanalysis, they pass on to smaller, cozier habitations. In The Freud Archives, p. 27. (DGB: Counter-editorially, I would say that these psychologists -- all of them 'all stars' in their own right, in the history and evolution of Clinical Psychoanalysis -- longed for 'a larger castle than Classical Psychoanalysis', not 'smaller'. It was generally Freud's 'theoretical reductionism' that they were trying to escape from such as his 'pansexualism' and 'The Oedipal Complex', which strongly limited them in the scope of their thinking and Freud left no room for 'compromise' or 'alternative, counter-theories'. That is why they all left, not because they were looking for 'smaller, cozier habitation'. (In The Freud Archives, p. 27)
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Continuing on with Malcolm's 'pro-Psychoanalytic rant'...
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'The present day proponents of the seduction theory are new versions of those old revisionists. (In The Freud Archives, p. 27.) (DGB: Counter-editorially I say this is partly true, partly false. Some of the old Psychoanalysts, most particularly Ferenczi, didn't like Freud's rejection of the seduction theory any more than Masson did, and many of them didn't like 'The Oedipal Complex' -- or at least Freud's way of using and abusing the Oedipal Complex to potentially 'cover up' childhood sexual abuse'.)
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Continuing in the same passage...
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They are people in whom the germ of psychoanalytic thought has never caught hold. (DGB editorial comment: For good reason as Freudian Theory was so 'tightly constricted' at the time, that the other theorists, particularly the ones who left, were 'strangling in the tightening noose' of Classical Psychoanalysis...)
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And again, continuing in the same passage...
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'Masson's repudiation of psychoanalysis is hardly a new story to students of defections from the fold; nor is the idea that Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler were 'taken in' by Masson a startling one. Here, too, there is a venerable precedent. It has become a kind of cliche about Freud that he was "no Menschenkenner". Throughout his life, he was beset (as who isn't?) by the affliction of overestimation. Breur, Fliess, and Jung, is a cautionary tale whose moral seems so obvious that there may be another, more subtle one hidden behind it.' (In The Freud Archives, p. 27.)
DGB: Counter-editorial comments: Please tell us, dear Ms. Malcolm what this so-called 'moral' is that is so obvious to yourself, and assumedly to your reader, that you don't even need to state it!!
Because I am missing your moral. And I will most certainly identify the 'hidden moral' that you are missing that is hidden behind your 'undisclosed mystery moral'. Firstly, Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler were not 'taken in' by Jeffrey Masson in the 'manipulative' way that you are implying here. One of the 'underlying subtle morals' that you, Ms. Malcolm, missed here, is the fact that often, the higher that you rise in an organization, the more you can clearly see the 'toxicity', 'corruption', 'narcissism', and/or 'stagnant status-quo' of the organization.
Or let me put it this way: the closer you get to knowing someone, the more you learn about their vulnerabilities, their weaknesses, and their 'stringent pathological beliefs and values'. This applies to all of the past Freudian revisionists cited above who the better they came to know Freud, and some of the weaknesses and liabilities of his various theories, even some of the 'pathological toxicities' of these theories, particularly his 'pansexualism' and the way he used and abused The Oedipal Complex, the more that they 'rebelled' -- like any intelligent, independent person would -- against these 'problems' that were inherent and fundamental in Freud's theories -- that he wouldn't change or even contemplate modifying. The main problem behind Freud's theories was the man himself and his particular 'transference neurosis' and 'anal-retentiveness' such that no one in his 'fold' could persuade him to modify some of his theories and/or tinker with his own 'theoretical control fetish'.
Meanwhile, Freud was a genius when it came to creatively modifying and re-building his own theories...Just not let another male theorist or therapist significantly disagree with him...And Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler stood in well for Father Freud when they took over and ruled the 'Psychoanalytic Roost'...for a lot of years including the beginning of the years that we are talking about here in 1981-1982 until Anna Freud died in 1982 and Eissler presumably took over as Masson was outcast...
Relative to Freud's 'theoretical control fetish', the main exception to this rule was Melanie Klein who 'got away' with what none of the 'male Psychoanalytic theorests' could get away with under Freud's most watchful and judgmental eye. It was mainly from Melanie Klein's most provocative and controversial work, that the predominant 'alternative school of Psychoanalysis' to Classical Psychoanalysis was born -- 'Object Relations'...It is no more similar to Classical Psychoanalysis than any of Jungian Psychology, Adlerian Psychology, Transactional Analysis, or Gestalt Therapy...
It is most unfortunate that Freud hadn't been sufficiently 'liberal and democratic' enough in his approach to the evolution of Psychoanalysis, that he could have let Adler create 'Alderian Psychoanalyis', Jung create 'Jungian Psychoanalyis', Reich create 'Reichian Psychoanalysis, Fritz Perls create 'Gestalt Psychoanalysis', and Masson could have perhaps worked to create a 'Traumacy-Seduction Psychoanalysis' (probably in many, if not all of these different psychologiess, not even the 'famous or infamous couch' would have remained sacred...)
Now let me get real wild in my own narcissistic fantasy here and suggest that if Dr. Jeffrey Masson was still firmly entrenched somewhere near the top of, if not at the top of, The Psychoanalytic Establishment, and helping to transform Classical Psychoanalysis into a more 'reality-based' as opposed to 'fantasy based' theory of psychology...(remember, I am a more 'integrative theorist' here and wish to bridge the gap between the two polar theories...dgb)
And perhaps, in the context of this 'self-fantasized', more 'liberal-minded, egalitarian spirit of evolutionary Psychoanalytic thinking', with the powers at the top of The Psychoanalytic Establishment, including Masson, knowing that important evolutionary Pychoanalytic ideas can be born not only 'inside' the Psychoanalytic Fold/Box but also from 'outside' the Psychoanalytic Fold/Box....
Perhaps in this type of environmental context, a theorist like myself with no formal Psychoanalytic training but plenty of self-taught knowledge form what I have learned from my own books and my own research, and my own background in both Adlerian Psychology and Gestalt Therapy, to go with my Honours B.A. in Psychology and my own Honours Thesis which was a precursor (30 years ago) of 'Hegel's Hotel'....
Perhaps in such an environment, if I was to so boldly make my presence known, and say in effect:
'Hey, gentlremen (and ladies), I can contribute to your theory-building. I can do what you people do...in fact, perhaps, arguably, I can go one step better than you...because if there is one talent, one skill, one ability that God seems to have given me more than anything else, it seems to be an ability to integrate multiple ideas and theories..together...and bring them all under one roof...'
So here is what I can do: I can take all of Freud's 50 years of theorizing -- even his work before 1897 including both The Traumacy Theory and The Seduction Theory -- and I can take parts of Jungian Psychology, and parts of Adlerian Psychology, and parts of Gestalt Therapy, and parts of Object Relations, and parts of Transactional Analysis....
Or to put it another way, I can take 130 years of evolutionary thinking in Clinical Psychology and Personality Theory and Psychotherapy...and bring everything together into one integrative symphony, one collosal painting, one Grand Narrative in the template and spirit of Hegel's 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' and Nietzsche's 'The Birth of Tragedy'...
And speaking of tragedies....
What happened in the 1980s was a tragedy; a Psychoanalytic -- and a human -- tragedy...
Anna Freud, Kurt Eissler, and Jeffrey Masson were all great, passionate people caught in a theoretical and therapeutic impasse that they could not break out of...Each did what they thought was right, Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler, loyal to the end, trying to protect the legacy and integrity of Anna's historical father's character...Jeffrey Masson seeing things differently and wanting to do what he thought was right for the ongoing evolution of Psychoanalysis.
To repeat, Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler were not 'taken in' by the 'ambitious manipulations' of Jeffrey Masson. They were mesmerized -- most rightfully so -- by Masson's intellect, his passion, his righteousness, his charisma, his integrity, and his courage to say what other Psychoanalysts were afraid to say...
And that is why what happened through this whole Freudian scandal in the 1980s was nothing less than a dramatic, existential and Psychoanalytic tragedy -- for all of us.
I practically cry when I think about how Psychoanalysis could have evolved differently -- and didn't.
And when I think of how Psychoanalysis could have been -- and still could be -- but isn't.
And when I think of the man who could have been right at the top of the Psychoanalytic hierarchy right now -- leading a more 'liberated, democratic, egalitarian, feminine-friendly Psychoanalysis'
-- and isn't.
Am I over-idealizing Masson just like Malcolm claims that both Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler over-idealized him?
Perhaps.
But I have gone on record as saying that I don't agree with everything Masson wrote about The Seduction Theory. I have opted all along for a more 'integrative' as opposed to 'either/or', 'Us vs. Them' approach.
Politically at least, Masson was often his own worst enemy, charging around like a 'stomping bull in The Psychoanalytic China Shop'... the way he would summarize his editiorial comments with a 'coup de grace' that was meant, probably usually by design, to be 'provocative' and 'ruffle the feathers of The Psychoanlytic Establishment', if not more. 'More' is the operative word here...
Comments like 'the sterility of present day Psychoanalysis' and particularly 'Freud's loss of moral courage' would not endear him to most, if any, members of The Psychoanalytic Establishment, most notably to Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler in the last example.
Wrote Sarah Boxer in The New York Times, Kurt Eissler, 90, Director of The Freud Archives, on February 20th,1999, in a column citing Eissler's long, esteemed career as a Psychoanalysist shortly after his death:
The fatefulness of that decision became clear to Dr. Eissler in 1981, when Dr. Masson, who was projects director of the archives, delivered a shocking paper to the Western New England Psychoanalytic Society, in New Haven. Dr. Masson said Freud had abandoned his ''seduction theory'' -- the idea that adult neurosis is caused by childhood sexual abuse -- for personal rather than scientific reasons. By dropping the seduction theory, Dr. Masson concluded, ''Freud began a trend away from the real world that, it seems to me, has come to a dead halt in the present-day sterility of psychoanalysis throughout the world.'' (my emphasis)
Wow, Eissler ruling the Freudian empire til he was 90. What a remarkable man!! I wonder how many times Eissler might have laid in bed at night and thought to himself,
'Jeffrey, my prodigal son, why aren't you here helping me right now? You're the man with all the passion and energy... You could have been running this whole show now -- with me, of course, overseeing your activities and holding the reins on you tightly to make sure you didn't do anything else so crazy and stupid as what you did in the 80s. Why did you have to shoot your mouth off the way you did? Why couldn't you have played it a little more coolly and diplomatically, especially while Anna Freud was still alive? Why couldn't this whole Psychoanalytic play have gone down so much differently and had a much better ending to it, and to my life? Why aren't you here right now?
There comes a time when we all must choose beween 'political correctness or incorrectness' vs. 'self-integrity and organizational ethics'...even if that hurts us dearly in the pocketbook and bank account...Masson opted for 'self integrity' and 'organizational ethics' at what would become the expense of his Psychoanalytic career...and whether or not he knew the end of his Psychoanalytic career was coming to an end at this point, he was still going to punctuate his statements with a series of exclamation marks and a flair for the dramatic, even if partly overstated, generalization rather than the 'white washed' and/or 'sugar coated' one...
As Eissler would finally say in exasperated frustration in the 1980s, and I am paraphrasing here, until I can find the exact quote,
What else was Eissler to do once the situation had publicly skyrocketed so far out of control...Was he to let The Raging Bull Destroy The China in The The Psychoanalytic China Shop... or to use another analogy, let the 'inmate rule the asylum' like Jack Nicholson took over the assylum in 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'. Jeffrey Masson was like the Jack Nicholson of Psychoanalysis.
The character Jack Nicholson played in 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' did 'therapeutic wonders' in that crazy asylum...Maybe the 'Freudian asylum' was not a lot different...Every organization needs a 'rebeller', a 'deconstructionist', a 'bad boy' or 'bad girl' to clear out the stagnancy and sterility of paralyzed bureaucracy, status-quo thinking, toxicity, corruption, and lack of new passion...and 'new, fresh air in the organization'....like a fresh breeze circulating through the Freud House...
Anyway, here is the exact quote I was looking for above, which can be found in the same article as the one I cited above, written by Sarah Boxer of The New York Times on Feb. 20th, 1999, when Eissler died at the age of 90 years old.
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The fallout followed quickly. Dr. Eissler led the 13-member board of the Freud Archives into a vote to remove Dr. Masson from his position as projects director of the archives. In explanation of his action, Dr. Eissler said: ''Would you make director of the archives someone who writes plain nonsense?'' Then the legal tango began. Dr. Masson sued the Freud Archives for $13 million. Dr. Eissler sued Dr. Masson to get back his audio tapes and Freud's letters. And after Ms. Malcolm wrote an article on the affair, she too was sued by Dr. Masson. One matter at the heart of Malcolm trial involved a quotation in which Dr. Masson describes Dr. Eissler begging him not to tell Anna Freud about the scandal. Dr. Eissler attended that trial. ''There was about him,'' Gwen Davis wrote in The Nation, ''the poignance of old Geppetto, who had carved himself a son, only to discover, to his profound chagrin, that Pinocchio was a naughty boy.''
George Gross, a psychoanalyst and friend of Dr. Eissler, saw Dr. Eissler's emotions in a slightly different light. Dr. Eissler, he said ''was disappointed that he had not found a person who understood Freud the way he did.'' In that, he was a little like Freud. Mr. Gross said, ''Freud was constantly disappointed.''
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/20/arts/kurt-eissler-90-director-of-sigmund-freud-archives.html?pagewanted=1
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I continue to look at things differently than both warring factions at the time of this unfolding 1980s Psychoanalytic existential drama...
I'm still looking for a reconciliation and an integration. That is the essence of my work here in Hegel's Hotel -- to build integrative theoretical bridges.
Do I think a 'reconciliation' between The Psychoanalytic Establishment and Masson is ever likely to happen?
Probably not.
But never say never. Sometimes, people -- even warring factions -- can surprise you.
Who would have thought that there would have ever been a 'peace agreement' between the Protestants and The Roman Catholics in Ireland, as fragile as it might still be?
In the broader picture, a modified, metaphorical version of The Oedipal Complex needs to be brought into 'bi-polar, dialectic harmony' with The Seduction Theory and both included and respected as partial elements of a 'newer, much broader, integrative version' of Psychoanalysis.
This is the foundation and beginning of what I am calling 'DGB Quantum Psychoanalysis'.
-- dgb, March 17th, 2010
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
