Full Description
This edited collection brings together the perspectives of a broad spectrum of experts who reflect on Freud's Seduction Theory, psychoanalysis, and the reality of child abuse through the work of Jeffrey Masson.
Jeffrey Masson's The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory (1984) is arguably the most controversial book on psychoanalysis in the last century. It provoked a furore from mainstream psychoanalysis, yet was well-received by the emerging international trauma field and became a bestseller. Four decades on, a group of international scholars and professionals revisit Masson's original work and reflect on the lessons that can be taken from the saga. Was the reaction of Masson's peers tied to the fact that he had accused Freud of being less than heroic, or was it that he confronted psychoanalysis with a very uncomfortable truth? This book examines how The Assault on Truth came to be written, why it sparked such an extreme reaction, and the issues Masson was grappling with.
Complete with an extended Foreword by John Briere, a luminary of the modern trauma field, this book will be essential reading for practitioners, students, and researchers involved in contemporary psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, psychology and especially trauma care, women's mental health, child safety and the study of memory.
Contents
Foreword Preface 1. Background to "The Assault on Truth" 2. Sándor Ferenczi, Robert Fliess, Florence Rush, and Jeffrey Masson 3. Child Sexual Abuse and Psychoanalytic Theory: Sigmund Freud and Sándor Ferenczi's Childhood Seduction 4. The Perpetuation of Deliberate and Inadvertent Insensitivities within Psychoanalysis: Origins, Rhymes, and Reasons 5. Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson revisited: The seduction controversies about reality versus fantasy 6. Power, courage, trauma, betrayal, and memory: An interview with Professor Jennifer Freyd 7. The Memories of Millions 8. Another Suppression of Incest and Its Victims? 9. To Believe or not believe: The assault on the truth, the mind, and the body 10. Grappling with Truth: Psychotherapy and The Assault on Truth 11. The Assault on Truth in the Academy: Talk Therapy and the Social Control of Women 12. Has 'The Assault on Truth' had any influence on today's mental health services? Afterword Postscript
