Editorially speaking, I believe that the most important ideas that Freud ever wrote -- indeed, the essence and foundation of psychoanalysis -- can be found in his first two essays: 1. The Mechanism of Hysterical Phenomena (1893); and 2. The Neuro-Psychoses of Defence (1894) which progressively dealt with these three factors related to mental health: 1. reality-based, psychical trauma; 2. unbearable ideas that we perceive as threatening our ego-pride; and 3. a vast array of almost endlessly possible, imaginative 'defenses' that are aimed at avoiding that which we don't want to think about and/or deal with.
These three factors, together, constitute the essence of what Freud labelled as 'defensive hysteria' in 1894 which was the first step to an evolving, more generalized theory of the 'psycho-neuroses'.
Breuer, Charcot, Janet all played a part in influencing Freud's formula but it was Freud's idea of 'defense' that really created a 'new understanding' -- a psychological as opposed to physiological, genetic and/or 'degenerative' understanding -- for both 'hysteria' and eventually for 'all psycho-neuroses' (which did not include what Freud called 'the actual neuroses' -- i.e., 'anxiety neurosis' and 'neurasthenia' -- which Freud believed were more connected to 'here-and-now, immediacy' events as opposed to early childhood psychological events. Today, I would surmise that most psychotherapists would view most client symptoms (and 'causes') as involving both past and present psychological issues that inter-connect with each other.
Freud's first understanding of 'neurosis' was a simple, brilliant understanding of neurosis, which only became complicated and convoluted by the hugely imaginative abilities of clients to 'go to great ends to hide, distort, avoid, suppress, repress, project...whatever their particular 'unbearable idea' was -- stemming out of psychical trauma.
This formula is still just as relevant and meaningful today as it was back in 1894: people hiding 'psychical trauma' and 'unbearable ideas' from both themselves and/or others.
There are three parts in the equation above: again, 1. the psychical trauma; 2. the unbearable idea; and 3. the particular line(s) of defense against this unbearable idea.
The 'psychical trauma' usually starts the whole cycle but not necessarily.
Firstly, there is a definitional problem because psychical trauma' is 'in the mind of the beholder' -- different people react to the same or similar trauma in different ways, and what one person might consider to be a 'major' trauma, someone else might consider to be a 'minor' one. Perhaps Freud was right in this regard in saying that 'psychical reality' trumps 'material reality' (and the two are quite likely to be intimately interconnected and feed on each other).
There is one further problem that the concept of 'psychical trauma' raises and that is this: who determines the 'reality' of the 'psychical reality' -- Freud or the client; the analyst/therapist with his or her 'interpretive-reconstruction' of a material and psychical event; or the client him or herself as she remembers the historical event and his or her reaction to it -- both then and now.
That can create a big ethical problem in the therapeutic relationship.
Finally, there is the factor of 'childhood narcissistic fixation' (including both 'aim' and 'object') that can be partly equated with Freud's 'fantasy theory' and 'pleasure principle' but from my perspective, not totally to the extent that Freud goes 'head over heals into childhood sexual fantasy'. More distinction will need to be worked out in this area.
Many of Freud's case examples up to 1896 reflected an erotic fantasy and narcissistic fixation component being the 'unbearable idea' factor behind their particular hysterical symptom(s), although usually the way he cited these cases, the fantasy was usually an 'adolescent' or 'adult' fantasy; not a childhood one. That is probably to be more expected in the Victorian era with women's fantasies -- or some women's fantasies -- being hampered by the stringent moral codes of the time. The point here is that the 'unacceptable idea' can be either a 'traumatic experience' and/or an 'unaccepted fantasy' -- we might even say, that with some, there might be a psychical traumatic factor in the imagined fantasy which could be quite outside the person's normal range of thinking...
How to reconcile -- or not reconcile -- 'psychical trauma' with 'erotic fantasy' in the proper understanding of the human psyche; this theoretical problem Freud would think long and hard about between 1896 and 1897 before moving forward (or backward) to the 'fantasy' side of the equation to the detriment of the basically abandoned previous triadic 'reality-trauma-seduction' theories. After 1896, the new 'triadic' psychoanalytic theories were his 'fantasy-Oedipus-impulsive drive (id)' theories which more or less completely 'boxed out' his previous triadic theories, particularly the seduction theory.
What stayed the same from his older theories which could now be applied to the new ones were his 1. unbearable or irreconcilable idea theory (which was now fantasy as opposed to trauma based; and 2. his evolving and enlarging theory of 'defence mechanisms' of which he started with 'repression' and, with other important psychoanalysts help, moved on to a whole network of them...I may be adding a few of my own here... introjection, identification, projection, transference, denial, reaction-formation, sublimation, rationalization, intellectualization, approval-seeking/disapproval-avoiding, distancing, dreams, jokes, sarcasm, allusion to immediacy or to transference complexes, displacement, dissociation, psychosis, 'hysterical conversion symptoms' or 'hysterical attacks', obsessive-compulsion-addiction (anal, oral, genital), character disorders (bi-polar disorder or manic-depression, borderline personality, narcissistic personality...)
Editorially speaking, Freud was right in coming to the conclusion that there were some problems with the 'all inclusiveness' of Freud's overly reductionistic trauma and (even more so his) seduction theory which is not to say that they were wrong -- just over-generalized, and/or incapable of explaining everything that Freud wanted to explain in psychoanalysis...
What Freud was wrong in concluding was: first that ALL psychical neuroses are caused by early childhood trauma (1893-1895), and more specifically, early childhood sexual trauma (1895-1896); before reversing his field -- meaning all three of his preceding theories -- by declaring from about 1897 onwards to the end of his career that ALL psychical neuroses are caused by early childhood sexual fantasy, and that first three theories listed above were largely 'mistaken'.
If we can make one negative generalization about Freud, it is perhaps this: that Freud had a habit of moving from one extreme theoretical conclusion to another, over-generalizing in the process, resulting in critics calling his theories 'pan-sexual' and 'reductionistic' -- which they generally were, and still are -- on both sides of the 1896-97 fence, river, chasm, abyss...
No 'either/or' decision needed to be made by Freud in 1896 or anytime afterwards. Freud created an unnecessary conflict for himself -- and for psychoanalysis -- that has driven a wedge and indeed, created an abyss in the middle of orthodox, classical psychoanalysis that is still present today, 117 years later (1896 to 2013).
Editorially interpreting, there has been a rather large 'exodus' from Classical Psychoanalysis to Object Relations and other 'sub-schools' of psychoanalysis that do not suffer from the same 'Freudian flaws' that no one within the Psychoanalytic Establishment seems to want to touch and modify in order to reduce its most glaring patriarchal, sexist, Victorian biases -- and the aforementioned 'over-generalized, over-polarized, either/or theories' -- to keep a modified, modernized version of 'Classical' Psychoanalysis 'alive and vibrant, and relevant'.
As Janet Malcolm pointed out in 'In The Freud Archives (1983,84), this puts the Object Relationist theorists on the same basic page as the modern day 'Trauma-Seduction' theorists, most notably Dr. Jeffrey Masson, who both share the common denominator of paying more attention to 'reality and trauma theory' and reducing if not dismissing altogether the theoretical, diagnostic and therapeutic relevance of the Oedipus Complex theory (like Fairbairn et. al ...Winnicott, Guntrip...did)...and many others today as well...
Thus, a dichotomy of contradictions (of the 1896-97 variety) some would say has put a rather significant theoretical and therapeutic 'chasm' or 'abyss' between Classical Psychoanalysis and Object Relations, although, it would seem, that on the whole, psychoanalysis is trying to minimize the significance of this seeming contradiction in respective theories.
'Tolerance', 'diplomacy', 'polite internal disagreement' -- and/or ideally, a 'theoretical bridge' to connect this contradiction in theories -- seems to be the way that this 'abyss' issue has been mainly handled internally lately (to my very limited sample of 'witnessing the cross-dialogue' at the one professional psychoanalytic seminar that I have attended).
Anna Freud was the person who really needed to make -- and should have made -- the necessary adjustments and modifications to her father's outdated, discriminatory theories but she, unfortunately, either could not see the need for this, or simply did not want to try to modify her father's work to make it more 'female friendly' and less one-sidedly extreme in terms of its 'pansexualism' and 'pan-fantasy bias'.
Of course, Anna Freud was born into essentially the same Victorian context and culture as her father lived through, so perhaps we should not be surprised by no 'post-Classical, modern day' adjustments in her time (up to 1982), nor Eissler's time, same reason (up to 1999), nor, by the looks of things, perhaps by anyone at anytime (2013 and still counting...).
Other 'psychoanalytic scholars' have tried to argue that there were no victims of early childhood sexual abuse in Freud's early case studies. If you are prone to believe that one, then just read the two excerpts below that I have included from one of Freud's most passionate and compassionate essays -- 'The Aetiology of Hysteria' (1896) in which Freud 'blew the whistle' on childhood sexual abuse and the 'acute and chronic leftover psychic trauma' to these victims, both female and male -- as well as blowing the whistle on the offending and offensive childhood sexual victimizers who were, more often than not, members of the victims' own family (and perhaps walked among the men of The Vienna Psychiatry and Neurology Society who all put up a huge protest against this theory...
Perhaps the fine, upper class, patriarchal men of The Vienna Psychiatry and Neurology Society....doth protest too much, methinks...
Freud most certainly did not lack 'moral courage' in the spring of 1896 when he read the paper above to above mentioned Society on the evening of April 21st.
However, did he 'lose this moral courage' shortly after this meeting because of what happened in the meeting? And/or because of Freud's continued sense of guilt and/or fear of professional punishment for the Emma Ekstein ordeal?
That was the million dollar motivational question that Masson threw out at the scholarly world and the general public back in the early 1980s.
Only Masson did not spare any 'moral hammers' in going after Freud's theorized 'loss of moral courage' which Masson turned into a declarative statement -- and then went public with his accusation.
The Psychoanalytic Establishment right up to the top of the hierarchy -- did not want to hear Masson's righteousness towards Freud -- particularly as it came out in Blumenthal's second interview with Masson in the New York Times in the summer of 1981....
It didn't take long afterwards -- October of 1981 -- for Anna Freud, Kurt Eissler, and the 13 member board to vote to end Masson's contract after one year as The Projects Director of The Freud Archives.
Stated Eissler, 'Would you make director of the Archives someone who writes plain nonsense? He must foresee that he cannot get an honorary place here.'
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Dear Jeff Masson,
Your letter came today, and I answer quickly, since I may have to go to hospital in a few days, and that may mean an interruption. I am sorry, though, that my answer will be disappointing to you.
I have to tell you that I was also put off very much by the second article in the New York Times, only my reaction to it was different from Dr. Eissler's. I felt almost certain that the writer of the article had misunderstood you and that the interpretation concerning the seduction theory was his and not yours. I just could not imagine that it could be yours.
Of course, I have not read the lecture you gave in New Haven, but to me it seems out of the question that there is valid proof for the abandonment of the seduction theory for reasons of external rejection, nor can there be any valid sign that in spite of this abandonment it was kept up secretly. In fact, there is abundant proof to the contrary, not only in all the later case histories, but in the whole of the analytic theory altogether. Keeping up the seduction theory would mean to abandon the Oedipus complex, and with it the whole importance of fantasy life, conscious or unconscious fantasy. In fact, I think there would have been no psychoanalysis afterwards.
I know the Fliess letters so well, but I just cannot imagine what in them led you to this conclusion to which you have come.
I look forward to hearing more from you.
Your sincerely,
Anna Freud
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My own editorial comments...
I can tell you which letters led Masson to the conclusion he came to (that is, his 'Freud lost moral courage' argument -- the April 26th, and May 4th, 1896 letters partly quoted above.
But more than this, Anna Freud was completely, flat, outright wrong in believing that there could have been no fantasy theory without Freud abandoning the seduction theory.
There are obviously different types of fantasies, all 'compensatory' in some fashion in terms of 'looking for the greener grass on the other side of the fence' . But within this general parameter, fantasy is only limited by the limits of the human imagination which is practically limitless. Reality and fantasy can be viewed as polar dialectical twins that co-influence the content and evolution (or 'de-evolution') of each other.
Within the realm of the 'darker' fantasies childhood trauma scenes often play into the content and 'signature characteristics' of adult fantasy scenes, the one often being the intended 'inverse' in some way of the other. Unfortunately, this almost universal human defense mechanism -- 'identification' or more specifically 'identification with the aggressor/victimizer/rejector/abandoner/betrayer...' -- can turn a childhood 'trauma victim' into an 'adult victimizer' in any of a thousand or more different ways, some more ominous than others.
I really do not believe that there are any childhood exceptions (although to be sure I remember what I wrote earlier about the tendency to 'over-generalize' generalizations).
Now, to be sure, sometimes these forms of 'destructive and self-destructive identification patterns and complexes' can be modified and worn away over time (with more positive types of living and loving experiences combined with the learning to go along with it).
Conversely, there are other types of good, loving identifications as well, assuming we received and perceived loving behavior as children from our primary caretakers or 'attachment figures' who are usually our parents.
These polar types of transference-identifications -- both the positive ones and negative ones -- make up the 'signature' aspects of our personality and act like a double-sided ferris wheel ride -- gain, the childhood (and evolving) reality playing into the production of a person's evolving fantasy life. Again, psychoanalysis -- and Freud in particular -- never needed to make an 'either/or' choice that mutually excluded the existence of the other. Freud, and psychoanalysis in general has not thought 'dialectically' enough in this regard, and evolved both theoretically and therapeutically in a fashion where 'reality' and 'fantasy', seduction theory and Oedipus theory, need to be viewed as 'co-influencers' of each other, not 'right' and 'wrong' answers in Freud's head or any one else's.
This points the way to an integration between Pre-Psychoanalysis and Classical Psychoanalysis which should have been made many, many years ago....
Why it wasn't -- or hasn't been -- is beyond me.
Sigmund Freud, all the greatest psychoanalysts, Anna Freud, Melanie Klein, Brian Bird, Jeffrey Masson, perhaps Ronald Fairbairn was the closest with his concepts of '(attracting)-exciting' and 'rejecting/(ed) objects' was closest -- but all in all, I have listed off some extremely intelligent, famous names -- and none of them could see this 'dialectic connection' between 'trauma' and ' fantasy' .
So I offer psychoanalysis this following gift.... a 'dialectic gift' and 'double inversion theory' of 'reality' and 'fantasy'....Very simple in its simplest version....simple stupid, in fact...
What reality lacked or lacks, fantasy visualizes...and chases...
In 1905 (Three Essays on Sexuality), Freud wrote: 'The (adult) neurosis is the inverse of the (childhood) perversion.'
In 2013, I write: 'The (adult) fantasy/perversion is the inverse of the (childhood) real trauma-(transference) neurosis.
There lies the potential for integrative synthesis between Pre-Psychoanalysis, Classical Psychoanalysis -- and Object Relations and Self Psychology.
Perhaps the potential for a 'compromise olive branch'...
Between, in my view, a morally very courageous man -- Dr. Jeffrey Masson...
And the Psychoanalytic Establishment...as hard as seems to be working to 're-integrate' trauma theory back into its main school of thought -- it still needs to better 'synthesize' what happened in the 1980s into a more 'positive, female friendly' brand of psychoanalysis in the 21st century..
Am I optimistic about the possibility of a 'peace treaty' here ...
Between Psychoanalysis and Dr. Jeffrey Masson?
Am I reaching for an imaginary rainbow here...
A happy ending to The Birth of Tragedy...
Apollo and Dionysus dancing together on the hilltop...
Is it too late?
Are we in 'The Twilight of The (Fading) Idols'?
(Ironically, Twilight of The Idols was written in 1888 in the week of August 26th to September 23rd) 'Synchronicity' perhaps?
The twilight of Freud's -- and Freudian Psychoanalysis' -- fading integrity?
Is it too late to rescue both? Or at least the latter?
The twilight of 'non-closure' on this issue of a 'toxic Oedipus Complex' theory that discriminates particularly against female Classical Psychoanalytic clients?
With no hope for any 'creative, integrative solutions and/or conflict-resolutions?
What Freud called a 'compromise-formation'?
My hours of work on this subject matter has pretty well run its course...
This is perhaps my signature paper on the Seduction-Oedipus Controversy...
My time spent on this massive ethical issue...
Will more or less come to a close in a few minutes here...
I have virtually emptied my soul into this issue since I first read 'Final Analysis' (Masson, 1992), In The Freud Archives (Janet Malcolm, 1983, 84)), and The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory (Masson, 1984,85, 92)...
Defending a man who I believe was -- and still is -- more right than wrong..
A complicated issue to be sure...
But psychoanalysis is returning to Freud's earliest trauma theory...
And has to have some means of understanding, diagnosing, and treating incestuous, childhood sexual abuse....
Rather than continuing to worship at the alter of the Oedipus Complex theory...
The Oedipus Complex still has significant value as a form of 'attachment-detachment' theory between children and parents.
But not as a means of suppressing the existence of childhood sexual abuse.
Theories are generalizations, not facts.
Freud treated his Oedipus Complex theory as a fact that basically 'dismissed' the possibility of father-daughter sexual assault, and as a leader of any school of psychology and psychotherapy -- let alone one of the most prominent -- this was totally unacceptable and unethical. His lasting teachings in this regard to thousands of other psychoanalysts who were basically told to 'swallow' or 'introject' this teaching if they wanted to be 'psychoanalysts' (although some, and perhaps a building majority, have come to reject, or at least minimize, this teaching) have essentially turned psychoanalysis into a 'pathological system' of Freud's most biased, one-sided, sexist, patriarchal theories -- worst of which is the Oedipus Complex theory at has been taught for over a hundred years. Freud: Oedipus Complex theory means no father-daughter incest but rather 'incestuous daughter fantasies towards her father'.
How can a psychoanalyst know if there was no adult-child seduction/sexual assault that took place in childhood if The Oedipus Complex theory assumes that there was no such assault to begin with? That's logically putting the cart before the horse.
More than that, it is probably the most unethical passage that Freud ever committed to paper -- or at least to The 24 volumes of The Standard Edition of The Complete Works of Sigmund Freud.
There are a couple of letters written to Fliess in the spring of 1896, quoted above, that rival this passage above.
Theories can be useful but not as personal and professional 'defence mechanisms'.
On an ethical level, Masson was more right than wrong but no one in The Psychoanalytic Establishment wanted to stand up for him, not in the 1980s, not today, not publicly, and privately, who knows?
As a result, Psychoanalysis still has a major 'branding' problem -- with other schools of psychology, with the general public -- and particularly with women who do not view Psychoanalysis as being 'female friendly'.
But worse than this, underneath their branding problem, they still have an 'ethics', 'integrity' and 'content substance' problem...
It may be mainly a 'Freudian, Classical' Psychoanalysis problem, of which more and more psychoanalysts are seemingly 'abandoning ship'....but still...
All psychoanalysts are often still being tarred with the same 'brand' brush...
Toxic unethical issues in Classical Psychoanalysis involving The Oedipus Complex theory 'covering up' the mainly 'abandoned seduction (childhood sexual abuse) theory' and the possibility/probability of 'misdiagnosing' real childhood sexual abuse....affects all of Psychoanalysis...particularly amongst those who do not understand that Object Relations was created, at least partly, to eliminate or downplay the significance of The Oedipus Complex Theory...
'Corporate branding' needs to be 'simple, stupid' that the public can identify with something that is 'good', not 'bad'.
Anna Freud should have 'cut bait' and 'fixed' the Oedipus problem...
But I am not even sure that she could see the 'big picture' other than protecting her dad's image and ideas....
Masson's bringing the 'dirty laundry' of psychoanalysis into the public limelight could have, should have, created the opportunity for Anna Freud to better see the need to make psychoanalysis more 'female and consumer friendly' -- in essence, to 're-brand' an archaically outdated theory -- actually it should never have been defined the way it was defined in the first place....so it was a 'pathological' theory even in The Victorian era, perhaps to 'appease' a network of psychiatrists and neurologists who would have ruined his career if he hadn't found some way of 'abandoning' the seduction theory....But 'this is motivational speculation' -- the same motivational speculation that ended Masson's psychoanalytic career.
And no one can go back into history and get inside Freud's head...
So this remains historical and motivational speculation based primarily on the meeting of April 21st, 1896, and secondly, on Freud's seeming need to alleviate both himself and Fliess from the ongoing guilt of having really messed up and disfigured Emma Ekstein's nasal passage....Does anyone today really buy into Freud's theory that she was a 'hysterical bleeder'. It is extremely unfortunate that Freud's 'fantasy theory' seemed to have been 'creatively born' in the middle of 'professional duress' and 'guilt'...but...it certainly would seem to me that Freud's first 'diagnosis' and 'usage' of his newly born 'fantasy theory' was labelling Emma Ekstein as a 'hysterical bleeder' in the spring of 1896....
Human, all too human...
But what was the ultimate cost?
A toxically tinged Oedipus and Fantasy Theory...
That would/will some day ultimately spell the end of Classical Psychoanalysis...
Perhaps The Psychoanalytic Establishment is going about this the right way...
The slow death of Freudian Classical Psychoanalysis...
While the other 'sub-brands' of Psychoanalysis...
Particularly Object Relations...
Become more and more dominant...
And take over...
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You were right from your side,
I was right from mine,
We're just one too many mornings,
And a thousand miles behind.
-- Bob Dylan (One Too Many Mornings)
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You choose...
But before you do...
Read these two excerpts below from The Aetiology of Hysteria, and I think you will certainly see where Masson was coming from....the clinical material reported by Freud in 1896 -- before he 'abandoned' the seduction theory -- was just too shockingly, tragically, and concretely reported to be construed as anything other than a patient's real, personal nightmare -- the idea of it being any patient's 'childhood fantasy' is, in my opinion, ethically disgusting...
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'In some cases, no doubt, we are concerned with experiences which must be regarded as severe traumas -- an attempted rape, perhaps, which reveals to the immature girl at a blow all the brutality of sexual desire, or involuntary witnessing of sexual acts between parents, which at one and the same time uncovers unsuspected ugliness and wounds childish and moral sensibilities alike, and so on. (my editorial comment: it is hugely revealing that Freud lumps the second example in with the second because the second example is an abstraction and an allusion to Freud's first conscious early memory which in Ernest Jones' biography is treated as being 'trivial'. In contrast, as Freud hints at here, I view this allusion to Freud's first memory as the most important 'transference memory' in Freud's long life.)
And later on in the same 1896 paper, this next section is even more shocking...but morally compassionate and courageous...
'For the idea of these infantile sexual scenes is very repellent to the feelings of a sexually normal individual; they include all the the abuses known to debauched and impotent persons, among whom the buccal cavity and the rectum are misused for sexual purposes. For physicians, astonishment at this soon gives way to complete understanding. People who have no hesitation in satisfying their sexual desires upon children cannot be expected to jib at finer shades in the methods of obtaining that satisfaction; and the sexual impotence which is inherent in children inevitably forces them into the same substitutive actions as those to which adults descend if they become impotent. All the singular conditions under which the ill-matched pair conduct their love-relations -- on the one hand the adult, who cannot escape his share in the mutual dependence necessarily entailed by a sexual relationship, and who is yet armed with complete authority and the right to punish, and can exchange the one role for the other to the uninhibited satisfaction of his moods, and on the other hand the child, who in his helplessness is at the mercy of this arbitrary will, who is prematurely aroused to every kind of sensibility and exposed to every sort of disappointment, and whose performance of the sexual activities assigned to him often interrupted by his imperfect control of his natural needs -- all these grotesque and yet tragic incongruities reveal themselves as stamped upon the later development of the individual and of his neurosis, in countless permanent effects which deserve to be traced in the greatest detail. Where the relation is between two children postulates a previous seduction of one of them by an adult. The psychical consequences of these child-relations are quite extraordinarily far-fetching; the two individuals remain linked by an invisible bond throughout the whole of their lives.' (S.E. V. 3, p. 214-215).
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Ah, but you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears
Bury the rag deep in your face
For now's the time for your tears.
-- Bob Dylan (The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll)
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-- dgb, Sept 6th, 2013,
= David Gordon Bain
