Home > Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

Masson, after gaining access to Freud's correspondence, took the position that Freud, in order to advance the cause of psychoanalysis, had developed the theory that childhood reports of sexual abuse were fantasy, despite much actual abuse. See Sandor Ferenczi. Word of his controversial position reached the New York Times, and when Masson had been interviewed by a reporter, his theories were published in the Times to the dismay of the psychoanalytic establishment. Shortly thereafter he was removed from his job as Project Director of the Freud Archives and he left the psychoanalytic organizations he belonged to and wrote several books critical of psychoanalysis. These events are described in Janet Malcolm's book In The Freud Archives .

Nevertheless there has been significant criticism of his claims about Freud's alleged suppression of abuse. Contrary to Masson's The Assault on Truth, some documents contemporary to Freud, especially his letters to Wilhem Fliees, seem to suggest that he pressured, directly or indirectly, some patients into admissions or 'reproductions' of putatively forgotten incidents of abuse. Of course, if that is true, then Freud's subsequent abandonment of the unconsious memories of abuse theory and adoption of the sexual fantasy theory is a step towards intellectually honesty, not away. Nevertheless the issue remains unresolved.

Lately Masson has written several books on the emotional life of animals.

1 Masson's Books

• The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory.
• Against Therapy: Emotional Tyranny and the Myth of Psychological Healing.
• He edited The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess , 1887-1904.
• A Dark Science: Women, Sexuality and PsychiatryPsychiatry is a branch of medicine that studies and treats mental and emotional disorders (see mental illness). The term alienist is an old term for a psychiatrist, and the term shrink (from "head shrinker") is a (sometimes offensive) slang term for a psy in the Nineteenth CenturyCenturies: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s Years: 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 Events and Trends Technology Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first doc
• Final Analysis: The Making and Unmaking of A Psychoanalyst, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1990, BooksEnthsiast.com.
• The Oceanic Feeling: The Origins of Religious SentimentReligion sometimes used interchangeably with faith, is commonly defined as belief concerning the supernatural, sacred, or divine, and the practices and institutions associated with such belief. Borobudur, a Buddhist stupa built between 750 and 850 Adriaen in Ancient IndiaThe Republic of India is a large multicultural country in South Asia, with a population of over one billion. The Indian economy is the fourth largest in the world, in terms of purchasing power parity, and is the world's second-fastest growing economy.
• My Father's Guru
• Dogs Never Lie About Love: Reflections on the Emotional World of Dogs
• When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Life of Animals