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Assault on Truth, The counter display
In '81, J.M. Masson was fired from his position as Projects Director of the Sigmund Freud Archives, shortly after suggesting in a talk in New Haven that a key theory Freud had developed in 1895 & later repudiated--so-called seduction theory--may have been valid after all. This talk scandalized Freudian orthodoxy, as reported in Time, Newsweek & The NYTimes.Here for the 1st time are the letters from Freud, long kept from public view, which stirred this controversy. On the basis of these letters & other new information discovered at the Archives & elsewhere in Europe, Masson has written a devastating, controversial expose of psychoanalytical origins. In 1895, Freud formulated what was perhaps his most profound that emotional disturbances in adults stem from actual early traumatic experiences, the knowledge of which has been repressed. But he eventually renounced this theory in favor of a new view, that his women patients had fantasized their early memories of rape & seduction--a view on which the whole budding science of psychoanalysis would be based.Masson makes available previously unpublished letters from Freud's closest friend, Wilhelm Fliess, which reveal that Freud had grave doubts about abandoning seduction theory. Masson discovered that not only had Freud read the contemporary literature documenting the high incidence of sexual abuse of children, he'd in all likelihood witnessed autopsies of children who had been raped & murdered. That Freud abandoned his seduction theory was a failure of courage rather than a clinical or theoretical insight.Resultantly, most psychiatrists & psychoanalysts have in effect been reluctant to trust patient memories, especially women's, about traumas of childhood. Like Freud, they see such traumata as fantasy rather than reality. This cover-up of the truth has poisoned the entire profession.
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First published January 1, 1984
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About the author
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
65 books254 followersHe has written several books books critical of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and psychiatry as well as books on animals, their emotions and their rights.
He currently lives in New Zealand with his wife, two sons, three cats and three rats.
He currently lives in New Zealand with his wife, two sons, three cats and three rats.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
December 23, 2013
I became interested in the history of psychiatry and psychology in college, obtaining a degree on the subject in seminary and pursuing the study afterwards in graduate school. Indeed, by the end of college I fully expected to become a depth psychologist.
While, as with so many other interests, I've kept my hand in since, reading the books I come across on these matters, I gave up the idea of a career in the field through the ancient Chinese method of "a thousand cuts". The church-based program I had planned to work for, thereby avoiding the odious problematic of taking money from suffering persons, was defunded, still I interned in NYC, but fell in love & moved to Chicago to discover that what counted for certification in the one state didn't in the other. I worked at a low level with adolescents diagnosed as psychotic for several years, paying off school loans. Getting fed up with getting nowhere, I returned to school to finish a dissertation of the philosophical roots of analytical psychology, but the only faculty person qualified to supervise my work, a psychoanalyst and philosophy PhD fron Northwestern University, had his contract not renewed. Then, my assistantship having run out, I landed a peachy job as an academic administrator and decided to stay with that while working on a further graduate degree which would allow me to teach in one of the university's professional schools. Finally, having become an academic dean, I and several hundred others were laid off during a budget crisis and my university division was abolished, leaving me the overeducated and effectively, I learned, unemployable creature that I've become.
Oh, there's more on the subjective side. In addition to having always been uncomfortable with the oxymoron of being paid to be considerately kind, I had increasingly become disenchanted with most of what passed for psychotherapy. The field of analytical psychology in particular seemed almost entirely adverse to empirical research and my study of depth psychology in general had raised serious doubts about some of its tenets and their pertinacious proponents. The more I mastered the often arcane formulations of the discipline, the more I became disenchanted with the supposed science and the more I recognized the relative importance of the character, intention and common sense of the analyst. While I still believe that serious relations between persons can and should have a therapeutic intent, I have come to see this more as like a Socratic dialogue than as an office consultation.
This having been said, I naturally found the story of Masson's own enchantment and disenchantment with psychoanalysis a sympathetic one. Whether or not his claims for the incidence of child abuse in Freud's Vienna is factually the case, he does demonstrate that there was a retreat from the initial, quite serious if true, hypothesis.
While, as with so many other interests, I've kept my hand in since, reading the books I come across on these matters, I gave up the idea of a career in the field through the ancient Chinese method of "a thousand cuts". The church-based program I had planned to work for, thereby avoiding the odious problematic of taking money from suffering persons, was defunded, still I interned in NYC, but fell in love & moved to Chicago to discover that what counted for certification in the one state didn't in the other. I worked at a low level with adolescents diagnosed as psychotic for several years, paying off school loans. Getting fed up with getting nowhere, I returned to school to finish a dissertation of the philosophical roots of analytical psychology, but the only faculty person qualified to supervise my work, a psychoanalyst and philosophy PhD fron Northwestern University, had his contract not renewed. Then, my assistantship having run out, I landed a peachy job as an academic administrator and decided to stay with that while working on a further graduate degree which would allow me to teach in one of the university's professional schools. Finally, having become an academic dean, I and several hundred others were laid off during a budget crisis and my university division was abolished, leaving me the overeducated and effectively, I learned, unemployable creature that I've become.
Oh, there's more on the subjective side. In addition to having always been uncomfortable with the oxymoron of being paid to be considerately kind, I had increasingly become disenchanted with most of what passed for psychotherapy. The field of analytical psychology in particular seemed almost entirely adverse to empirical research and my study of depth psychology in general had raised serious doubts about some of its tenets and their pertinacious proponents. The more I mastered the often arcane formulations of the discipline, the more I became disenchanted with the supposed science and the more I recognized the relative importance of the character, intention and common sense of the analyst. While I still believe that serious relations between persons can and should have a therapeutic intent, I have come to see this more as like a Socratic dialogue than as an office consultation.
This having been said, I naturally found the story of Masson's own enchantment and disenchantment with psychoanalysis a sympathetic one. Whether or not his claims for the incidence of child abuse in Freud's Vienna is factually the case, he does demonstrate that there was a retreat from the initial, quite serious if true, hypothesis.
April 27, 2019
I have complicated feelings about this book. Masson does a fantastic job of highlighting the misogyny of the medical field at the time (even though he avoids looking at the issue through a feminist lens), and it is highly disturbing how ready doctors were to discount disclosures of abuse as ‘hysterical lies’
My main issue, and something that really detracts from his arguments, is the blind acceptance of the validity of both the psychoanalytical method and the theory underpinning it.
There’s no acknowledgement - even though Freud states it in a number of direct quotes Masson used to bolster his own argument - that Freud never heard spontaneous accounts of sexual abuse from his patients... they were all ‘repressed’, they were all things his patients could NOT remember but Freud decided they had experienced because it fit his theory at the time. Freud states explicitly in Studies on Hysteria that psychoanalysis is a method that is intended to reduce reliance on self report from patients, that he can determine the cause WITHOUT patients telling him because he can access their ‘unconscious mind’.
Masson believes in the unconscious mind and as a result he fails to address the main problem with psychoanalysis, not that it evolved into a form of interpretation that didn’t believe patients, but the entire premise of psychoanalysis is not believing what patients say.
Freud didn’t believe patients when they told them they’d never been abused, because he knew better, he knew the memories were repressed and not accessible to the conscious mind. It just changed to Freud not believing patients when they said they didn’t have childhood sexual fantasies... because he knew better, the fantasies were repressed and not accessible to the conscious mind. Both approaches strip the patients of agency.
Freuds language about the seduction theory did change over the years, and when discussing it he did start to claim that the abuse had been self reported. But Masson is a Freud scholar, Masson would know that in his original writings on the seduction theory it was Freud, not his patients, that identified the abuse and insisted that it had happened even when his patients denied it.
Masson is a known critic of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy - but this book just gives Freud far too much credit for something that he never actually did.
My main issue, and something that really detracts from his arguments, is the blind acceptance of the validity of both the psychoanalytical method and the theory underpinning it.
There’s no acknowledgement - even though Freud states it in a number of direct quotes Masson used to bolster his own argument - that Freud never heard spontaneous accounts of sexual abuse from his patients... they were all ‘repressed’, they were all things his patients could NOT remember but Freud decided they had experienced because it fit his theory at the time. Freud states explicitly in Studies on Hysteria that psychoanalysis is a method that is intended to reduce reliance on self report from patients, that he can determine the cause WITHOUT patients telling him because he can access their ‘unconscious mind’.
Masson believes in the unconscious mind and as a result he fails to address the main problem with psychoanalysis, not that it evolved into a form of interpretation that didn’t believe patients, but the entire premise of psychoanalysis is not believing what patients say.
Freud didn’t believe patients when they told them they’d never been abused, because he knew better, he knew the memories were repressed and not accessible to the conscious mind. It just changed to Freud not believing patients when they said they didn’t have childhood sexual fantasies... because he knew better, the fantasies were repressed and not accessible to the conscious mind. Both approaches strip the patients of agency.
Freuds language about the seduction theory did change over the years, and when discussing it he did start to claim that the abuse had been self reported. But Masson is a Freud scholar, Masson would know that in his original writings on the seduction theory it was Freud, not his patients, that identified the abuse and insisted that it had happened even when his patients denied it.
Masson is a known critic of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy - but this book just gives Freud far too much credit for something that he never actually did.
September 7, 2013
Masson's book is a scholarly critique of Freud's foundational thought on the unconscious and childhood sexuality. Using material from Freud's archives previously unpublished, he seeks to show how Freud's original view that neurotic adults suffered sexual abuse as children should have been pursued rather than his revised view that such neurotics suffered from their childhood sexual fantasies. I found his argument compelling and particularly admired the weight of evidence he adds from medical views at the time Freud was writing to support the argument that child sexual abuse was a prevalent reality.
Having a long history of interest in the topic of child abuse, and taking the view that it's prevalence leads to social denial I was intrigued by this work. Interestingly, one of Masson's few supporters in the Psychoanalytic community is Alice Miller, whose work I had previously read and admired. I also enjoyed Masson's style of writing, although he is probably understandably rather defensive. The many appendices in the edition I read update the story of the book's reception, and it is clear that he feels vindicated by the increasing acceptance that child sexual abuse is a common reality. Masson has since then made a successful career of writing non fiction, and currently focuses on animal-human relationships.
Having a long history of interest in the topic of child abuse, and taking the view that it's prevalence leads to social denial I was intrigued by this work. Interestingly, one of Masson's few supporters in the Psychoanalytic community is Alice Miller, whose work I had previously read and admired. I also enjoyed Masson's style of writing, although he is probably understandably rather defensive. The many appendices in the edition I read update the story of the book's reception, and it is clear that he feels vindicated by the increasing acceptance that child sexual abuse is a common reality. Masson has since then made a successful career of writing non fiction, and currently focuses on animal-human relationships.
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March 25, 2016I am not rating this book because I did not finish it. While I am interested in the topic of how Freud perceived victims of sexual abuse and how he later changed his stance; I made it about halfway through the book and could no longer tolerate the frequent descriptions of child sexual abuse. I think they were excessive and after the first few, did not lend support to the material in my opinion.
There is the very real likelihood that I am not capable of understanding and appreciating the author's work since I am not a high thinker and this book was not suited for my intelligence level. I have seen that the author also has a book about the emotional lives of cats. That sounds more my speed.
There is the very real likelihood that I am not capable of understanding and appreciating the author's work since I am not a high thinker and this book was not suited for my intelligence level. I have seen that the author also has a book about the emotional lives of cats. That sounds more my speed.
July 25, 2008
A grad school favorite, still red-hot in its revelations and controversies.
August 23, 2024
DID FREUD ABANDON EVIDENCE FOR CHILDHOOD ABUSE TO PROTECT A FRIEND?
Author Jeffrey Moussaieff Mason has written other books such as 'Against Therapy,' 'When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals,; etc.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 1992 book, "In 1895 and 1896 Freud, in listening to his women patients, learned that something dreadful and violent lay in their past. The psychiatrists who had heard these stories before Freud had accused their patients of being hysterical liars and had dismissed their memories as fantasy. Freud was the first psychiatrist who believed his patients were telling the truth. These women were sick... because something terrible and secret had been done to them as children." (Pg. xxx)
He begins by stating, "On the evening of April 21, 1986, Sigmund Freud gave a paper before his colleagues... The address presented... Freud's new theory that the origin of neurosis lay in early sexual traumas ... This is what later came to be called the 'seduction theory'---namely, the belief that these early experiences were real, not fantasies, and had a damaging and lasting effect on the later lives of the children who suffered them.
"Freud uses various words to describe these 'infantile sex scenes'... All of these words explicitly state something about the violence being directed against the child expressed in the sexuality of the adult, with the exception of the word 'seduction,' which was an unfortunate choice, since it implies some form of participation by the child... In Freud's later theories... this ambiguity inherent in the word is exploited. The implication is that the ... [child] has brought on the sexual act by his or her own behavior..." (Pg. 3-5)
Later, "Freud was to retract ... the belief that external, real sexual traumas lay at the very heart of neurosis. His patients, he now felt, had been lying to themselves and to him..." (Pg. 11) Masson asks, "What had happened? Why did Freud abandon the 'seduction theory'?... The purpose of this book is to make public evidence... that would point to a more illuminating explanation for the single most important step Freud took..." (Pg. 12-13)
He says, "I have suggested Emma Eckstein was the patient who provided Freud with the seduction theory." (Pg. 87) After a bungled operation performed by Freud's colleague and friend Wilhelm Fliess, "Freud had the option to ... confess it to Emma Eckstein... Or he could protect Fliess by excusing what had happened. But in order to do this... it would be necessary to construct a theory of hysterical lying, a theory whereby the external traumas suffered by the patient never happened, but are fantasies.
"If Emma Eckstein's problems (her bleeding) had nothing to do with the real world (Fliess's operation), then her earlier accounts of seduction could well be fantasies too. The consequences of Freud's act of loyalty toward Fliess would reach far beyond this single case." (Pg. 99) Masson later contends that Fliess's son Robert "believed that his father had sexually seduced him when he was a young child. Now, if it is true that Wilhelm Fliess was ... harming his own child at the same time that Sigmund Freud was on the track of his greatest discovery... then we see here one of the poorest matches in the history of intellectual discoveries." (Pg. 142)
He concludes, "Between 1897 and 1903, Freud came to believe that ... most ... of his women patients had deceived themselves and him. Their memories of seduction were nothing more than fantasies... they were the product of the Oedipus complex, part of normal childhood sexuality. The new world that opened up to Freud with this 'discovery' ... permitted him to make a large number of genuine discoveries..." (Pg. 189) He adds, "I do not think that Freud ever made a conscious decision to ignore his earlier experiences... in my opinion, Freud had abandoned an important truth: the sexual, physical, and emotional violence that is a real and tragic part of the lives of many children." (Pg. 190)
Definitely a controversial book (the theory is critiqued in 'Freud: A Life for Our Time'), it is also a fascinating and compelling one, and a book that anyone seriously studying Freud and his ideas should contend with.
Author Jeffrey Moussaieff Mason has written other books such as 'Against Therapy,' 'When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals,; etc.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 1992 book, "In 1895 and 1896 Freud, in listening to his women patients, learned that something dreadful and violent lay in their past. The psychiatrists who had heard these stories before Freud had accused their patients of being hysterical liars and had dismissed their memories as fantasy. Freud was the first psychiatrist who believed his patients were telling the truth. These women were sick... because something terrible and secret had been done to them as children." (Pg. xxx)
He begins by stating, "On the evening of April 21, 1986, Sigmund Freud gave a paper before his colleagues... The address presented... Freud's new theory that the origin of neurosis lay in early sexual traumas ... This is what later came to be called the 'seduction theory'---namely, the belief that these early experiences were real, not fantasies, and had a damaging and lasting effect on the later lives of the children who suffered them.
"Freud uses various words to describe these 'infantile sex scenes'... All of these words explicitly state something about the violence being directed against the child expressed in the sexuality of the adult, with the exception of the word 'seduction,' which was an unfortunate choice, since it implies some form of participation by the child... In Freud's later theories... this ambiguity inherent in the word is exploited. The implication is that the ... [child] has brought on the sexual act by his or her own behavior..." (Pg. 3-5)
Later, "Freud was to retract ... the belief that external, real sexual traumas lay at the very heart of neurosis. His patients, he now felt, had been lying to themselves and to him..." (Pg. 11) Masson asks, "What had happened? Why did Freud abandon the 'seduction theory'?... The purpose of this book is to make public evidence... that would point to a more illuminating explanation for the single most important step Freud took..." (Pg. 12-13)
He says, "I have suggested Emma Eckstein was the patient who provided Freud with the seduction theory." (Pg. 87) After a bungled operation performed by Freud's colleague and friend Wilhelm Fliess, "Freud had the option to ... confess it to Emma Eckstein... Or he could protect Fliess by excusing what had happened. But in order to do this... it would be necessary to construct a theory of hysterical lying, a theory whereby the external traumas suffered by the patient never happened, but are fantasies.
"If Emma Eckstein's problems (her bleeding) had nothing to do with the real world (Fliess's operation), then her earlier accounts of seduction could well be fantasies too. The consequences of Freud's act of loyalty toward Fliess would reach far beyond this single case." (Pg. 99) Masson later contends that Fliess's son Robert "believed that his father had sexually seduced him when he was a young child. Now, if it is true that Wilhelm Fliess was ... harming his own child at the same time that Sigmund Freud was on the track of his greatest discovery... then we see here one of the poorest matches in the history of intellectual discoveries." (Pg. 142)
He concludes, "Between 1897 and 1903, Freud came to believe that ... most ... of his women patients had deceived themselves and him. Their memories of seduction were nothing more than fantasies... they were the product of the Oedipus complex, part of normal childhood sexuality. The new world that opened up to Freud with this 'discovery' ... permitted him to make a large number of genuine discoveries..." (Pg. 189) He adds, "I do not think that Freud ever made a conscious decision to ignore his earlier experiences... in my opinion, Freud had abandoned an important truth: the sexual, physical, and emotional violence that is a real and tragic part of the lives of many children." (Pg. 190)
Definitely a controversial book (the theory is critiqued in 'Freud: A Life for Our Time'), it is also a fascinating and compelling one, and a book that anyone seriously studying Freud and his ideas should contend with.
August 16, 2021
Thought provoking
A visceral history of psychoanalysis and why seduction theory was altered by Freud. Filled with tumultuous examples of sexual assaults on children, this work exposes the reality that children get sexually assaulted by parents a lot more than previously acknowledged, a fact Freud would have been aware of during his 1896 work. Freud's shift from believing the veracity of his patients to the unconscious processes of repression, etc reflects his personal relationship with close academics and subsequently affects the entire field of psychology and psychiatry.
A must read.
A visceral history of psychoanalysis and why seduction theory was altered by Freud. Filled with tumultuous examples of sexual assaults on children, this work exposes the reality that children get sexually assaulted by parents a lot more than previously acknowledged, a fact Freud would have been aware of during his 1896 work. Freud's shift from believing the veracity of his patients to the unconscious processes of repression, etc reflects his personal relationship with close academics and subsequently affects the entire field of psychology and psychiatry.
A must read.
July 31, 2007
This book confirmed my own personal suspicions about everything related to psychology, shattering the fundamental basis of therapy. Assault on Truth ascribes personal history the fundamental role of forming our futures, our understandings, and our beliefs. This observation is contrasted with the modern belief of people's problems stemming from invention in their own mind.
If you are a psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, or other similar field you will probably get very mad while reading this book.
If you are a psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, or other similar field you will probably get very mad while reading this book.
March 24, 2022
Jaw-dropping real-life detective story on the foundational origins of the theories that dominated psychotherapy for 80 years, and a personal failure of courage which killed the truth in its cradle with whiffy hand-waving abstractions. The day after reading furiously through the Eckstein letters shortly ensuing her operation, I had to wonder whether I'd dreamt what I'd read. "There's no way that was real," I thought. Chilling true crime ransom note stuff.
October 7, 2025
Book club book. Very eye opening but a hard read forsure
September 30, 2025
Highly enlightening
January 13, 2016
Jeffrey Masson attacks Freud for refusing to believe his patients' claims that they were sexually abused by their parents or others nearest and dearest to them. Freud claimed that these patients actually had sexual attraction to their parents that caused them dream of sex with their parents, which made them have false memories of being sexually abused. Masson says Freud covered up the truth because his friend Wilhelm Fliess was a pedophile who sexually molested his own son. Masson may be correct, but he goes off topic from his main thesis a lot and does not exactly produce a lot of concrete evidence to support his claims. My main problem with Freud is that I view his theories as non-scientific. So I have different reasons for rejecting Freud's ideas than Masson does.
I think that Masson is not a very good scholar. He makes category mistakes throughout the book, for example calling Freud a psychiatrist. Freud was not a psychiatrist in any sense, he was a neurologist, psychotherapist, and psychoanalyst. He was not strictly speaking a psychologist either, but that distinction is splitting hairs, what Freud did was essentially psychology. Freud was not in any sense a psychiatrist though. Psychiatry is specifically the study, diagnosis, and treatment of mental disorders, generally on the assumption that they have an organic basis rather than a psychological one. Psychiatrists generally treat people with drugs, not with psychotherapy, talking, counseling, or free association. Although Freud did sometimes medicate his patients, his practice was primarily about free association, talking, counseling, and psychotherapy. So to call Freud a psychiatrist is a gross misunderstanding of what Freud's profession was. Masson also has associated with radical feminists in the past and that gives good reason to question his portrayal of Freud in this book. Masson portrays Freud in a very sinister light, as a Machievallian helping male dominated society cover up sexual assault of women and children, similar to the Cigarette Smoking Man on the X-Files who was helping aliens to colonize the earth. Masson's association with radical feminists is troubling because they view rape as a political act rather than a sexual one, which I think is a bizarre viewpoint and feeds into Masson's portraying Freud's rape advocacy and pedophilia advocacy as part of a broader oppressive strategy by male dominated society. I think Masson's view of Freud is ridiculous. Masson in another book titled Against Therapysuggested that Freud sexually assaulted his daughter Anna by quoting a psychiatrist named David Viscott who had suggested it, but provided no evidence that Viscott had said this, or description of what Viscott's evidence was, and also conceded that Viscott had no direct evidence. That is very bad scholarship on Masson's part. I contacted Masson about the claim and gave him the opportunity to elaborate and he refused to do so. So I'm forced reluctantly to conclude that Masson relies on interpretation and discounts direct evidence, just like the chief villain of this book who Masson so hates, Sigmund Freud.
I think that Masson is not a very good scholar. He makes category mistakes throughout the book, for example calling Freud a psychiatrist. Freud was not a psychiatrist in any sense, he was a neurologist, psychotherapist, and psychoanalyst. He was not strictly speaking a psychologist either, but that distinction is splitting hairs, what Freud did was essentially psychology. Freud was not in any sense a psychiatrist though. Psychiatry is specifically the study, diagnosis, and treatment of mental disorders, generally on the assumption that they have an organic basis rather than a psychological one. Psychiatrists generally treat people with drugs, not with psychotherapy, talking, counseling, or free association. Although Freud did sometimes medicate his patients, his practice was primarily about free association, talking, counseling, and psychotherapy. So to call Freud a psychiatrist is a gross misunderstanding of what Freud's profession was. Masson also has associated with radical feminists in the past and that gives good reason to question his portrayal of Freud in this book. Masson portrays Freud in a very sinister light, as a Machievallian helping male dominated society cover up sexual assault of women and children, similar to the Cigarette Smoking Man on the X-Files who was helping aliens to colonize the earth. Masson's association with radical feminists is troubling because they view rape as a political act rather than a sexual one, which I think is a bizarre viewpoint and feeds into Masson's portraying Freud's rape advocacy and pedophilia advocacy as part of a broader oppressive strategy by male dominated society. I think Masson's view of Freud is ridiculous. Masson in another book titled Against Therapysuggested that Freud sexually assaulted his daughter Anna by quoting a psychiatrist named David Viscott who had suggested it, but provided no evidence that Viscott had said this, or description of what Viscott's evidence was, and also conceded that Viscott had no direct evidence. That is very bad scholarship on Masson's part. I contacted Masson about the claim and gave him the opportunity to elaborate and he refused to do so. So I'm forced reluctantly to conclude that Masson relies on interpretation and discounts direct evidence, just like the chief villain of this book who Masson so hates, Sigmund Freud.
August 3, 2025
This is the next book in Candace's Book Club and I wanted to read it before the discussions.
Candace explained it as Freud changing his theory about childhood sexual abuse because he was covering for his colleagues. Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson stresses that the reasons are speculation. His book is more clinical and historical rather than outright declaring the reasons. He's just asking questions and getting ostracized for it. What we do know is that Freud did cave in and changed his theory because of isolation and pressure from his colleagues and friends.
It was difficult to read, not just because it does get clinical but because it's disturbing. Masson points to cases of sexual abuse and some get detailed. I could not read it for long periods of time.
Obviously having access to the Freud archives and the unpublished letters means the book is well researched. Masson organized it into a streamlined historical look at the truth. He also included Freud's 1896, The Aetiology of Hysteria. Which oh my goodness, was it the translation or Freud's writing that's so wordy? Is German wordy? That took me so long to read.
It is clear that Freud is a coward because he didn't stand up for the victims, instead he gaslit them. I don't want to get into the details, but so many messed up things happened. Look up Emma Eckstein.
Anyway, I'll be interested to see what the book club says about this book because I went in expecting one thing and came out feeling it was something else. It doesn't declare anything, it's all speculation. Maybe Candace went down some rabbit holes and will have more information about Freud and his abysmal friends.
3.5 out of 5 Studies.
Quotes:
Page 112- Freud was like a dogged detective, on the track of a great crime, communicating his hunches and approximations and at last his final discovery to his best friend, who may have been in fact the criminal.
Page 137 - [About Sándor Ferenczi]Then came the obituaries by the men who had turned away from him when he was alive.
Page 168 - Freud, many years earlier, should have been angry at himself and his friend Fliess for recommending a dangerous and unnecessary operation.
Candace explained it as Freud changing his theory about childhood sexual abuse because he was covering for his colleagues. Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson stresses that the reasons are speculation. His book is more clinical and historical rather than outright declaring the reasons. He's just asking questions and getting ostracized for it. What we do know is that Freud did cave in and changed his theory because of isolation and pressure from his colleagues and friends.
It was difficult to read, not just because it does get clinical but because it's disturbing. Masson points to cases of sexual abuse and some get detailed. I could not read it for long periods of time.
Obviously having access to the Freud archives and the unpublished letters means the book is well researched. Masson organized it into a streamlined historical look at the truth. He also included Freud's 1896, The Aetiology of Hysteria. Which oh my goodness, was it the translation or Freud's writing that's so wordy? Is German wordy? That took me so long to read.
It is clear that Freud is a coward because he didn't stand up for the victims, instead he gaslit them. I don't want to get into the details, but so many messed up things happened. Look up Emma Eckstein.
Anyway, I'll be interested to see what the book club says about this book because I went in expecting one thing and came out feeling it was something else. It doesn't declare anything, it's all speculation. Maybe Candace went down some rabbit holes and will have more information about Freud and his abysmal friends.
3.5 out of 5 Studies.
Quotes:
Page 112- Freud was like a dogged detective, on the track of a great crime, communicating his hunches and approximations and at last his final discovery to his best friend, who may have been in fact the criminal.
Page 137 - [About Sándor Ferenczi]Then came the obituaries by the men who had turned away from him when he was alive.
Page 168 - Freud, many years earlier, should have been angry at himself and his friend Fliess for recommending a dangerous and unnecessary operation.
October 8, 2025
Freud the Gaslighting Conman
Reading The Assault on Truth feels like watching the curtain fall on one of the biggest frauds in modern intellectual history. Freud doesn’t come across as a pioneer of psychology but as a man gaslighting his patients — and later, the entire world. When women came to him describing sexual abuse, he didn’t just fail to believe them; he built a theory that turned their pain into fantasy. It wasn’t psychology — it was narrative control. Going into this book, I only knew the textbook version of Freud: the father of modern psychoanalysis, the man who uncovered the unconscious, repression, dreams. I expected an origin story of psychology. What I found instead was a disturbing pattern of denial, arrogance, and self-protection — a portrait of a man who built an entire discipline out of excuses.
>>>Freud and Fliess: Medicine Without Morality
The story that truly shattered my respect for Freud is the one involving Emma Eckstein, a young woman who became the patient at the center of his collaboration with his friend Wilhelm Fliess. Fliess believed, absurdly, that sexual disorders could be treated through nasal surgery — that the nose and genitals were somehow linked. Acting on this belief, Fliess performed surgery on Emma, and left a piece of gauze inside her nose. She nearly bled to death. Freud’s reaction wasn’t outrage or professional accountability. Instead, he covered for Fliess. He told others the bleeding was a manifestation of Emma’s “hysteria,” that it was psychological rather than surgical. He rewrote a botched medical operation into a symbolic story — gaslighting his patient to protect his friend. From that point on, I couldn’t take Freud seriously. Once someone convinces himself that nasal surgery can cure masturbation, how do you trust anything else he says about the mind?
>>>From the Seduction Theory to the “Fantasy” Theory
Freud’s early work had glimpses of truth. His patients, mostly women, spoke of being sexually abused as children. For a brief moment, Freud believed them. He called this the “seduction theory.” But soon, when the implications became too dangerous — when the abusers could no longer be dismissed as random strangers, but often fathers, uncles, or men of status — Freud retreated.
In one shocking admission, he wrote: “I was at least obliged to recognize that these scenes of seduction had never taken place, and that they were only fantasies which my patients had made up.” That single pivot changed everything. Overnight, real suffering became imagination. Trauma became wish-fulfillment. The abused became liars.
Reading Masson’s analysis, it becomes painfully clear that this wasn’t a discovery — it was a cover-up. Freud’s decision to abandon the seduction theory wasn’t intellectual courage; it was moral cowardice. If he admitted these women were telling the truth, the entire social order — including his own professional circle — would collapse.
>>>Cocaine and the Delusion of Genius
Freud’s questionable judgment didn’t begin or end with Emma Eckstein. Earlier in his career, he promoted cocaine as a miracle drug, believing it could cure everything from depression to morphine addiction. He even prescribed it liberally to his friends and patients. It was only after several people developed addiction problems or worse that he quietly backed away from it. Again, no accountability — just revision of the story. This is another early sign of the same pattern: impulsive theorizing, no empirical restraint, and total unwillingness to admit error.
>>>Diagnosing from Afar: The Case of Miss Severn
At one point, Freud wrote letters to Ernest Jones about a woman named Miss Severn, a patient of another psychoanalyst, Sándor Ferenczi. Freud had never met her — never spoken to her, never treated her — yet he confidently declared that her claims of childhood abuse were fantasies. It’s staggering arrogance. To diagnose someone he’d never met, and to erase her testimony entirely, reveals not a man of science but a man who worshipped his own theory above human truth. This wasn’t analysis — it was narrative manipulation.
>>>Ferenczi’s Revolt — and Freud’s Fear
Freud’s friendship with Sándor Ferenczi might be one of the saddest chapters in this whole story. Ferenczi started to truly listen to his patients. He began to believe their accounts of abuse and recognized that their symptoms weren’t fantasies but expressions of trauma. Freud couldn’t allow it. He worked to prevent Ferenczi from presenting his ideas at international conferences, effectively silencing him. In Ferenczi’s compassion, Freud saw a threat — not to science, but to the mythology he had built around himself. It’s hard not to see a pattern of moral decay: protect the theory, protect the friend, protect the reputation — even if it means suppressing truth and silencing victims.
>>>The Chain of Protection: Anna Freud and the Freud Archives
The gaslighting didn’t stop with Freud’s death. His daughter, Anna Freud, continued the cycle by carefully curating and censoring her father’s letters with Fliess. Only a sanitized version was released, preserving his image. When Jeffrey Masson — then briefly the director of the Freud Archives — read the unpublished letters, he realized how much had been hidden. His discovery led to this book, but also to his professional downfall: he was pressured to resign after writing about what he found. It’s a chilling repetition of the same pattern — one generation after another protecting the myth.
>>>Freud’s Legacy: Science Built on Denial
Finishing The Assault on Truth, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Freud’s entire system was less about understanding the human mind and more about controlling it. He replaced the messy, painful truth of abuse and trauma with a tidy, self-serving fiction — a version of psychology that comforted the abuser and doubted the victim. If that’s the foundation of psychoanalysis, then it’s not science — it’s institutionalized gaslighting.
>>>My Final Thoughts:
By the time I finished this book, I no longer saw Freud as the misunderstood genius of history books. I saw a man performing a lifelong confidence trick — on his patients, his peers, and the public. Masson’s The Assault on Truth doesn’t just expose Freud’s suppression of the seduction theory; it reveals how a discipline can grow from moral blindness and self-deception. Freud wasn’t uncovering the unconscious — he was burying the truth. If you’ve ever wondered how myths are made, and how easily “genius” can be a mask for denial, this book will make you see Freud — and perhaps the whole history of psychoanalysis — in an entirely different, deeply unsettling light.
Reading The Assault on Truth feels like watching the curtain fall on one of the biggest frauds in modern intellectual history. Freud doesn’t come across as a pioneer of psychology but as a man gaslighting his patients — and later, the entire world. When women came to him describing sexual abuse, he didn’t just fail to believe them; he built a theory that turned their pain into fantasy. It wasn’t psychology — it was narrative control. Going into this book, I only knew the textbook version of Freud: the father of modern psychoanalysis, the man who uncovered the unconscious, repression, dreams. I expected an origin story of psychology. What I found instead was a disturbing pattern of denial, arrogance, and self-protection — a portrait of a man who built an entire discipline out of excuses.
>>>Freud and Fliess: Medicine Without Morality
The story that truly shattered my respect for Freud is the one involving Emma Eckstein, a young woman who became the patient at the center of his collaboration with his friend Wilhelm Fliess. Fliess believed, absurdly, that sexual disorders could be treated through nasal surgery — that the nose and genitals were somehow linked. Acting on this belief, Fliess performed surgery on Emma, and left a piece of gauze inside her nose. She nearly bled to death. Freud’s reaction wasn’t outrage or professional accountability. Instead, he covered for Fliess. He told others the bleeding was a manifestation of Emma’s “hysteria,” that it was psychological rather than surgical. He rewrote a botched medical operation into a symbolic story — gaslighting his patient to protect his friend. From that point on, I couldn’t take Freud seriously. Once someone convinces himself that nasal surgery can cure masturbation, how do you trust anything else he says about the mind?
>>>From the Seduction Theory to the “Fantasy” Theory
Freud’s early work had glimpses of truth. His patients, mostly women, spoke of being sexually abused as children. For a brief moment, Freud believed them. He called this the “seduction theory.” But soon, when the implications became too dangerous — when the abusers could no longer be dismissed as random strangers, but often fathers, uncles, or men of status — Freud retreated.
In one shocking admission, he wrote: “I was at least obliged to recognize that these scenes of seduction had never taken place, and that they were only fantasies which my patients had made up.” That single pivot changed everything. Overnight, real suffering became imagination. Trauma became wish-fulfillment. The abused became liars.
Reading Masson’s analysis, it becomes painfully clear that this wasn’t a discovery — it was a cover-up. Freud’s decision to abandon the seduction theory wasn’t intellectual courage; it was moral cowardice. If he admitted these women were telling the truth, the entire social order — including his own professional circle — would collapse.
>>>Cocaine and the Delusion of Genius
Freud’s questionable judgment didn’t begin or end with Emma Eckstein. Earlier in his career, he promoted cocaine as a miracle drug, believing it could cure everything from depression to morphine addiction. He even prescribed it liberally to his friends and patients. It was only after several people developed addiction problems or worse that he quietly backed away from it. Again, no accountability — just revision of the story. This is another early sign of the same pattern: impulsive theorizing, no empirical restraint, and total unwillingness to admit error.
>>>Diagnosing from Afar: The Case of Miss Severn
At one point, Freud wrote letters to Ernest Jones about a woman named Miss Severn, a patient of another psychoanalyst, Sándor Ferenczi. Freud had never met her — never spoken to her, never treated her — yet he confidently declared that her claims of childhood abuse were fantasies. It’s staggering arrogance. To diagnose someone he’d never met, and to erase her testimony entirely, reveals not a man of science but a man who worshipped his own theory above human truth. This wasn’t analysis — it was narrative manipulation.
>>>Ferenczi’s Revolt — and Freud’s Fear
Freud’s friendship with Sándor Ferenczi might be one of the saddest chapters in this whole story. Ferenczi started to truly listen to his patients. He began to believe their accounts of abuse and recognized that their symptoms weren’t fantasies but expressions of trauma. Freud couldn’t allow it. He worked to prevent Ferenczi from presenting his ideas at international conferences, effectively silencing him. In Ferenczi’s compassion, Freud saw a threat — not to science, but to the mythology he had built around himself. It’s hard not to see a pattern of moral decay: protect the theory, protect the friend, protect the reputation — even if it means suppressing truth and silencing victims.
>>>The Chain of Protection: Anna Freud and the Freud Archives
The gaslighting didn’t stop with Freud’s death. His daughter, Anna Freud, continued the cycle by carefully curating and censoring her father’s letters with Fliess. Only a sanitized version was released, preserving his image. When Jeffrey Masson — then briefly the director of the Freud Archives — read the unpublished letters, he realized how much had been hidden. His discovery led to this book, but also to his professional downfall: he was pressured to resign after writing about what he found. It’s a chilling repetition of the same pattern — one generation after another protecting the myth.
>>>Freud’s Legacy: Science Built on Denial
Finishing The Assault on Truth, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Freud’s entire system was less about understanding the human mind and more about controlling it. He replaced the messy, painful truth of abuse and trauma with a tidy, self-serving fiction — a version of psychology that comforted the abuser and doubted the victim. If that’s the foundation of psychoanalysis, then it’s not science — it’s institutionalized gaslighting.
>>>My Final Thoughts:
By the time I finished this book, I no longer saw Freud as the misunderstood genius of history books. I saw a man performing a lifelong confidence trick — on his patients, his peers, and the public. Masson’s The Assault on Truth doesn’t just expose Freud’s suppression of the seduction theory; it reveals how a discipline can grow from moral blindness and self-deception. Freud wasn’t uncovering the unconscious — he was burying the truth. If you’ve ever wondered how myths are made, and how easily “genius” can be a mask for denial, this book will make you see Freud — and perhaps the whole history of psychoanalysis — in an entirely different, deeply unsettling light.
July 8, 2015
After reading
, this came up on some list for me somewhere:) Curious, I downloaded the sample. It hooked me. A very interesting read, I'm adding it to my"gothic literature" shelf, because I feel like it belongs there. Atmospheric, troubling, sexually perverse...or perhaps just an illumination of the impact of being factually perverse, it made for a thought-proviking read. Mostly it discusses Freud's weird flip from ascribing the etiology of "hysteria" to actual sexual assaults to fantasized sexual assaults. Quite a leap. Masson has written other books on psychotherapy, so from this book I moved on to
.
, this came up on some list for me somewhere:) Curious, I downloaded the sample. It hooked me. A very interesting read, I'm adding it to my"gothic literature" shelf, because I feel like it belongs there. Atmospheric, troubling, sexually perverse...or perhaps just an illumination of the impact of being factually perverse, it made for a thought-proviking read. Mostly it discusses Freud's weird flip from ascribing the etiology of "hysteria" to actual sexual assaults to fantasized sexual assaults. Quite a leap. Masson has written other books on psychotherapy, so from this book I moved on to
. 
November 2, 2024
"The real disappointment, however, is Freud himself."
......
......
May 2, 2025
Freud was liked a dogged detective on the track of a great crime, communicating his hunches and approximations and at last his final discovery to his best friend who may well have been in fact the criminal.”
His thesis is that all severe neurotics have been sexually seduced or otherwise traumatized in early childhood by a psychotic (but often perfectly socially adjusted) parent and in the process are violated, humiliated, and damaged”.
Freud shifted the interest of psychoanalysis tone pathogenic effects of fantasies, putting less emphasis on the pathogenic effects of real memories in repression. The ideal analytic patient has come to be a person without serious trauma in his childhood.”
A real memory demands some form of validation from the outside world — denial of those memories by others can lead to a break with reality, and a psychosis.”
To tell someone who has suffered the effects of a childhood filled with sexual violence that it does not matter whether his memories are anchored in reality or not is to do further violence to that person and is bound to have a pernicious effect.”
If Freud had not given up the seduction theory, he would never have created the Oedipus Complex leading to the creation of psychoanalysis as a science and a therapy.
One only succeeds in awakening the psychical trace of a precocious sexual event under the most energetic pressure of the analytic procedure, and against an enormous resistance. The memory must be extracted from them piece by piece and while it is being awakened they become prey to an emotion which is hard to counterfeit.”
Freud is here depicting a scene where a young girl accuses her father of having raped her, upon which the man begins to sob, acknowledging his guilt.”
Freud is was enraptured with Fliess during the most important years of his scientific development. The precise influence that Fliess exercised on Freud is impossible to construct.
The nose is regularly influenced by abnormal sexual satisfaction.
Granite does not ask whether her disturbances could have resulted from the reality of her accusations; instead he automatically assumes that her accusations are the result of her disturbances.”
Physical abuse often accompanies sexual abuse of a child. It is now common knowledge that sexual violence often ends in physical violence.”
If the mothers ignorance is one of the elements of the slander, the other is the extreme suggestibility of the child.”
He says of convicted rapists that they are often excellent family men.
The people accused of sexual assaults are usually what they call lucid lunatics, whose appetites and instincts dominate their will and punish them to the irresistible satisfaction of their morbid needs.
Sexual acts committed against children are very frequent, especially in highly populated areas and industrial centers. Those charged with this crime are often men of mature age or elderly men, and the age of the aggressor is almost always in inverse proportion to that of the victim. Education does not seem to be an inhibiting factor in the commission of this criminal act.”
Children living at home constitute a stimulus to evil acts. In our observations we have been struck by the large number of cases of incest that figure in them ….individuals with higher education has increased…
Children are vulnerable to these sexual attacks as early as age four. When they occur, parents would rather remain silent.”
He stresses the fact which the courts ignored, that sexual assaults, even when repeated over a long period of time, and frequently engaged in, are capable of leaving absolutely no trace.
The pain suffered by this unfortunate child surpasses the most atrocious punishment the mind is capable of imagining.
The denial was not total— somewhere these children kept their knowledge of the horrible crimes that had been committed on their bodies sealed off from the world.”
Freud was exposed to a literature attesting to the reality and frequency of sexual abuse in childhood (often occurring within the family); he witnesses autopsies at the Paris morgue performed on young victims of abuse.”
In 1905 Freud publicly retracted the seduction theory. Giving up his “erroneous” view allowed Freud to participate again in a medical society that had earlier ostracized him.”
The early traumas his patients had had the courage to face and report to him he was to later dismiss as the fantasies of hysterical women who invented stories and told lies.
His thesis is that all severe neurotics have been sexually seduced or otherwise traumatized in early childhood by a psychotic (but often perfectly socially adjusted) parent and in the process are violated, humiliated, and damaged”.
Freud shifted the interest of psychoanalysis tone pathogenic effects of fantasies, putting less emphasis on the pathogenic effects of real memories in repression. The ideal analytic patient has come to be a person without serious trauma in his childhood.”
A real memory demands some form of validation from the outside world — denial of those memories by others can lead to a break with reality, and a psychosis.”
To tell someone who has suffered the effects of a childhood filled with sexual violence that it does not matter whether his memories are anchored in reality or not is to do further violence to that person and is bound to have a pernicious effect.”
If Freud had not given up the seduction theory, he would never have created the Oedipus Complex leading to the creation of psychoanalysis as a science and a therapy.
One only succeeds in awakening the psychical trace of a precocious sexual event under the most energetic pressure of the analytic procedure, and against an enormous resistance. The memory must be extracted from them piece by piece and while it is being awakened they become prey to an emotion which is hard to counterfeit.”
Freud is here depicting a scene where a young girl accuses her father of having raped her, upon which the man begins to sob, acknowledging his guilt.”
Freud is was enraptured with Fliess during the most important years of his scientific development. The precise influence that Fliess exercised on Freud is impossible to construct.
The nose is regularly influenced by abnormal sexual satisfaction.
Granite does not ask whether her disturbances could have resulted from the reality of her accusations; instead he automatically assumes that her accusations are the result of her disturbances.”
Physical abuse often accompanies sexual abuse of a child. It is now common knowledge that sexual violence often ends in physical violence.”
If the mothers ignorance is one of the elements of the slander, the other is the extreme suggestibility of the child.”
He says of convicted rapists that they are often excellent family men.
The people accused of sexual assaults are usually what they call lucid lunatics, whose appetites and instincts dominate their will and punish them to the irresistible satisfaction of their morbid needs.
Sexual acts committed against children are very frequent, especially in highly populated areas and industrial centers. Those charged with this crime are often men of mature age or elderly men, and the age of the aggressor is almost always in inverse proportion to that of the victim. Education does not seem to be an inhibiting factor in the commission of this criminal act.”
Children living at home constitute a stimulus to evil acts. In our observations we have been struck by the large number of cases of incest that figure in them ….individuals with higher education has increased…
Children are vulnerable to these sexual attacks as early as age four. When they occur, parents would rather remain silent.”
He stresses the fact which the courts ignored, that sexual assaults, even when repeated over a long period of time, and frequently engaged in, are capable of leaving absolutely no trace.
The pain suffered by this unfortunate child surpasses the most atrocious punishment the mind is capable of imagining.
The denial was not total— somewhere these children kept their knowledge of the horrible crimes that had been committed on their bodies sealed off from the world.”
Freud was exposed to a literature attesting to the reality and frequency of sexual abuse in childhood (often occurring within the family); he witnesses autopsies at the Paris morgue performed on young victims of abuse.”
In 1905 Freud publicly retracted the seduction theory. Giving up his “erroneous” view allowed Freud to participate again in a medical society that had earlier ostracized him.”
The early traumas his patients had had the courage to face and report to him he was to later dismiss as the fantasies of hysterical women who invented stories and told lies.
July 29, 2025
The author of this book was a trusted person in the psychoanalytic profession and was therefore given unique access to Freud's letters and libraries. He slowly uncovered that Freud's life and work had been censored by his successors, ostensibly to protect the profession.
(For the rest of this review, be warned that the abuse of children is discussed.)
This led Masson to the discovery that Freud had participated in medical malpractice with respect to one of his first patients: Emma Eckstein. Freud was suffering professional isolation, had a one-sided emotional intimacy with a man who may or may not have been a crank and a criminal (Wilhelm Fleiss), and allowed this man to perform an unnecessary surgery on Emma which led to her near death, permanent facial disfigurement, and complications which seriously impacted her life and led potentially to her eventual death. Dang!
What is worse, Freud chose to protect himself and his friend Wilhelm from the emotional and professional consequences of this crime. How did he do this? He decided that Emma's subsequent hemorrhages from the operation site (bleeding) were caused by Emma's own twisted fantasies. What?! The utter stupidity (and medical impossibility) of this self-serving viewpoint is astounding. The author includes Freud's own words on this subject and it is shocking.
This cover-up marked the fundamental shift in Freud's thinking away from his original 'seduction theory'. In a massive about face, after this pivotal experience Freud denounced his own prior work and in addition his own patients as liars!
To give you the cliff notes version, as a younger man Freud believed his patients when they reported horrifying and criminal childhood abuse. Freud even made the shocking argument that hysteria was caused by childhood ***ual abuse (this is the horribly named seduction theory). He lays out his entire theory and defends it in an article called "The Aetiology of Hysteria". It is an intense read. Ironically he comes to hold in later life the very positions he defended his theory against in this paper.
Why did he initially believe his patients, when others in the profession did not? As a part of his medical training, Freud studied under French legal physicians who knew such things as horrific childhood abuse actually happened and with more frequency than anyone would like to believe. In addition, Freud almost certainly attended lectures in France in a morgue where autopsies of abused children were done. That is to say: he likely saw the evidence with his own eyes.
So why in later life did he denounce his patients memories as lies and fantasies?
Masson tells us that Freud's was a failure of moral courage.
He quotes Freud at length throughout the book, and Freud tells us in his own words that he " was at last obliged to recognize that these scenes of seduction had never taken place, and that they were only phantasies which my patients had made up or which I myself had perhaps forced on them, I was for some time completely at a loss . . . neurotic symptoms were not related directly to actual events but to wishful phantasies, and that as far as the neurosis was concerned psychical reality was of more importance than material reality." That is to say, Freud decided it did not matter whether the abuse had actually occurred. Instead only the 'fantasies' mattered. What?!?!
Freud himself later ostracized one of his closest coworkers (Ferenczi) for making the very same argument he himself made before, that these were memories, not fantasies.
It's all very upsetting. The charge that Freud was protecting himself and Fleiss from a malpractice lawsuit is serious. The charge that Freud was protecting criminal abusers of children and re-traumatizing his patients by convincing them that they were imagining it - is unforgivable.
I have vaguely heard of a more recent controversy surrounding this issue, with what I know being that psychoanalysts were accused of implanting false memories of abuse in their patients.
In conclusion the amount of shadiness going on with Freud is off-putting to say the least.
This is still a red-hot issue.
(For the rest of this review, be warned that the abuse of children is discussed.)
This led Masson to the discovery that Freud had participated in medical malpractice with respect to one of his first patients: Emma Eckstein. Freud was suffering professional isolation, had a one-sided emotional intimacy with a man who may or may not have been a crank and a criminal (Wilhelm Fleiss), and allowed this man to perform an unnecessary surgery on Emma which led to her near death, permanent facial disfigurement, and complications which seriously impacted her life and led potentially to her eventual death. Dang!
What is worse, Freud chose to protect himself and his friend Wilhelm from the emotional and professional consequences of this crime. How did he do this? He decided that Emma's subsequent hemorrhages from the operation site (bleeding) were caused by Emma's own twisted fantasies. What?! The utter stupidity (and medical impossibility) of this self-serving viewpoint is astounding. The author includes Freud's own words on this subject and it is shocking.
This cover-up marked the fundamental shift in Freud's thinking away from his original 'seduction theory'. In a massive about face, after this pivotal experience Freud denounced his own prior work and in addition his own patients as liars!
To give you the cliff notes version, as a younger man Freud believed his patients when they reported horrifying and criminal childhood abuse. Freud even made the shocking argument that hysteria was caused by childhood ***ual abuse (this is the horribly named seduction theory). He lays out his entire theory and defends it in an article called "The Aetiology of Hysteria". It is an intense read. Ironically he comes to hold in later life the very positions he defended his theory against in this paper.
Why did he initially believe his patients, when others in the profession did not? As a part of his medical training, Freud studied under French legal physicians who knew such things as horrific childhood abuse actually happened and with more frequency than anyone would like to believe. In addition, Freud almost certainly attended lectures in France in a morgue where autopsies of abused children were done. That is to say: he likely saw the evidence with his own eyes.
So why in later life did he denounce his patients memories as lies and fantasies?
Masson tells us that Freud's was a failure of moral courage.
He quotes Freud at length throughout the book, and Freud tells us in his own words that he " was at last obliged to recognize that these scenes of seduction had never taken place, and that they were only phantasies which my patients had made up or which I myself had perhaps forced on them, I was for some time completely at a loss . . . neurotic symptoms were not related directly to actual events but to wishful phantasies, and that as far as the neurosis was concerned psychical reality was of more importance than material reality." That is to say, Freud decided it did not matter whether the abuse had actually occurred. Instead only the 'fantasies' mattered. What?!?!
Freud himself later ostracized one of his closest coworkers (Ferenczi) for making the very same argument he himself made before, that these were memories, not fantasies.
It's all very upsetting. The charge that Freud was protecting himself and Fleiss from a malpractice lawsuit is serious. The charge that Freud was protecting criminal abusers of children and re-traumatizing his patients by convincing them that they were imagining it - is unforgivable.
I have vaguely heard of a more recent controversy surrounding this issue, with what I know being that psychoanalysts were accused of implanting false memories of abuse in their patients.
In conclusion the amount of shadiness going on with Freud is off-putting to say the least.
This is still a red-hot issue.
May 26, 2023
I bought this book from an old book store by the title. Masson's book is from 1984 and it has apparently been a scandal in the psychoanalysis community at the time. It is called a detective story and indeed it is based on detailed study of letters and people around Sigmund Freud and the early developments of his theories. The books is well-written and logical, and conclusions mostly acceptable I would say.
The basic claim is that Freud realized early in his career that many psychiatric patients had history of abuse, especially sexual abuse, "seduction", in the childhood. Masson gives many examples of really sad and disturbing cases and fragments of letters with case stories that are rough to read. However, when Freud presented his observation to the psychiatric community his views were rejected by all major figures in the field, in fact he became very unpopular in the field.
Then, Freud came up with a new theory that all the sad abuse stories of his patients were fantasies from the time of their (sexual) childhood development, and by diving deeper and deeper into the memories and the memories of the fantasies, in psychoanalytic sessions, these patients can be freed from their own harming memories and cured. This invention made him again famous, but cannot of course take a way the fact that probably many psychiatric patients have a background of childhood abuse. And, consequently, psychoanalysis on these patient is not "curing" them but helping them to come up with mental model that alleviates the symptoms caused by their trauma. Therefore, Masson's claim is that Freud basically rejected his own observations due to public pressure and came up with a more politically correct and "scientifically" interesting theory, and this has shaped the field of psychiatry for about 100 years. Maybe it would have been better investment to work more on education and measures against child abuse than the range of methods in psychoanalysis.
The basic claim is that Freud realized early in his career that many psychiatric patients had history of abuse, especially sexual abuse, "seduction", in the childhood. Masson gives many examples of really sad and disturbing cases and fragments of letters with case stories that are rough to read. However, when Freud presented his observation to the psychiatric community his views were rejected by all major figures in the field, in fact he became very unpopular in the field.
Then, Freud came up with a new theory that all the sad abuse stories of his patients were fantasies from the time of their (sexual) childhood development, and by diving deeper and deeper into the memories and the memories of the fantasies, in psychoanalytic sessions, these patients can be freed from their own harming memories and cured. This invention made him again famous, but cannot of course take a way the fact that probably many psychiatric patients have a background of childhood abuse. And, consequently, psychoanalysis on these patient is not "curing" them but helping them to come up with mental model that alleviates the symptoms caused by their trauma. Therefore, Masson's claim is that Freud basically rejected his own observations due to public pressure and came up with a more politically correct and "scientifically" interesting theory, and this has shaped the field of psychiatry for about 100 years. Maybe it would have been better investment to work more on education and measures against child abuse than the range of methods in psychoanalysis.
July 31, 2023
Masson's argument and references had the ring of truth to me. The near fanaticism with which Freud attacked people as enemies when they disagreed with him struck me as the rather childish behaviour of someone hiding something. For example, Jung describes having been pressured by Freud to lie about a dream during their shared trip to America. And Jung had the awareness that that was the beginning of the end of what had been very much a father / son relationship and Jung, the son, was faced with realising the truth of his father's human fallibility.
The inflexibility of Freud to constructively argue also has the ring of a false 'prophet' to me. That of a the person yelling the truth of God often being the one trying to convince his/her self of a 'truth' that they don't believe in.
Bias notices:
Note 1: my 'review' has the fault of my having been unpersuaded at any time by Freud's idea of the supremacy of sex in human psychology. And likely that was in part informed by my parents having been malformed by their destructive sexually compulsive behaviours and the esteem with which they held Freud and Kinsey and their ilk. Freud's psychology did not seem to have helped them live healthy lives and likely exacerbated their destructive behaviours.
Note 2: in a conversation ending email exchange I had with author Morris Berman, Berman asserted that Freud's later writings were astute and worth reading. Even with his suggestion I did not find myself drawn to investigating Freud's later writing despite how much I respected Berman's ideas in his Enlightenment trilogy.
The inflexibility of Freud to constructively argue also has the ring of a false 'prophet' to me. That of a the person yelling the truth of God often being the one trying to convince his/her self of a 'truth' that they don't believe in.
Bias notices:
Note 1: my 'review' has the fault of my having been unpersuaded at any time by Freud's idea of the supremacy of sex in human psychology. And likely that was in part informed by my parents having been malformed by their destructive sexually compulsive behaviours and the esteem with which they held Freud and Kinsey and their ilk. Freud's psychology did not seem to have helped them live healthy lives and likely exacerbated their destructive behaviours.
Note 2: in a conversation ending email exchange I had with author Morris Berman, Berman asserted that Freud's later writings were astute and worth reading. Even with his suggestion I did not find myself drawn to investigating Freud's later writing despite how much I respected Berman's ideas in his Enlightenment trilogy.
July 30, 2024
This is not a history of psycho analysis. It’s about Freud changing his Seduction Theory from saying the causes of hysteria are from patients memories of childhood sexual abuse , to patients fantasizing about memories of childhood sexual abuse.
He didn’t change it because his scientific methodology was flawed, nor did his colleagues, fault his methodology. They objected to the topic, the insinuation that a parent or adult relative would sexually abuse their own children. It was unthinkable, therefore nobody should think about it. Freud changed his theory to get along with his colleagues.
“It’s all in your mind” was the basic tenet of psycho analysis , for almost 100 years, until the 1980’s McMartin Preschool Trials. The Satanic Panic era, “false memory syndrome “
Then in the 90s, the JonBenét Ramsey case
The authors”’s 3 postscripts at the end of the book followed developments in the changing attitudes & knowledge as each edition of his book was published.
I’ve read the 1st section of Programmed to Kill by Dave McGowen “The Pedophocracy” & that was enough. I didn’t even finish the book
I’ve watched YouTube videos about Nick Bryant’s book The Franklin Scandal but haven’t read the book yet.
Now another book,just came out last year, Eye of the Chicken Hawk by Simon Dovey “ capitalizes
“ on the Pedophocracy topic
I don’t have to read this book, since there are plenty of folks on twitter who are interested in this enough to post excerpts.
So in the end, I was more interested in the history, the why & how this topic originated in the 1st place. This book mentions the French doctors who published books about the physical effects of childhood sexual abuse, before Freud came up with the Seduction Theory & the psychological effects
He didn’t change it because his scientific methodology was flawed, nor did his colleagues, fault his methodology. They objected to the topic, the insinuation that a parent or adult relative would sexually abuse their own children. It was unthinkable, therefore nobody should think about it. Freud changed his theory to get along with his colleagues.
“It’s all in your mind” was the basic tenet of psycho analysis , for almost 100 years, until the 1980’s McMartin Preschool Trials. The Satanic Panic era, “false memory syndrome “
Then in the 90s, the JonBenét Ramsey case
The authors”’s 3 postscripts at the end of the book followed developments in the changing attitudes & knowledge as each edition of his book was published.
I’ve read the 1st section of Programmed to Kill by Dave McGowen “The Pedophocracy” & that was enough. I didn’t even finish the book
I’ve watched YouTube videos about Nick Bryant’s book The Franklin Scandal but haven’t read the book yet.
Now another book,just came out last year, Eye of the Chicken Hawk by Simon Dovey “ capitalizes
“ on the Pedophocracy topic
I don’t have to read this book, since there are plenty of folks on twitter who are interested in this enough to post excerpts.
So in the end, I was more interested in the history, the why & how this topic originated in the 1st place. This book mentions the French doctors who published books about the physical effects of childhood sexual abuse, before Freud came up with the Seduction Theory & the psychological effects
March 12, 2023
Way before Masson turned against psychoanalytic theory, he made an excelent historical account of how Freud supressed many cases of family abuse to avoid censorship.
Now, considering that Freud on many posterior texts (such as his introductory lectures), sometimes spoke about the "seduction" (which should be called abuse) theory, one can see the sensationalist title Masson chose.
Still, despite this fair criticism, in my opinion, I consider this text to be one of the best bibliographical studies I've ever read.
Also, as a marxist, one can clearly see how family abuse is a product of the capitalist mode of production: neurosis and hysteria, in the most classical sense, are symptoms of the society we live in (an effect of abuse).
That's why Masson's later texts fail incredibly: they renounce to scientific analysis and any possibility of true political change.
Now, considering that Freud on many posterior texts (such as his introductory lectures), sometimes spoke about the "seduction" (which should be called abuse) theory, one can see the sensationalist title Masson chose.
Still, despite this fair criticism, in my opinion, I consider this text to be one of the best bibliographical studies I've ever read.
Also, as a marxist, one can clearly see how family abuse is a product of the capitalist mode of production: neurosis and hysteria, in the most classical sense, are symptoms of the society we live in (an effect of abuse).
That's why Masson's later texts fail incredibly: they renounce to scientific analysis and any possibility of true political change.
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December 5, 2023It’s a tragedy when the truth is discovered but, because of the desire to protect egos and keep secrets, that truth is then buried. That’s The Assault on Truth that J. Moussaieff Masson is writing about. His claim is that Freud discovered that children were being sexually abused and made the claim publicly, but because of his ostracization retreated from his position. If true, Freud traded protecting children for his community and fame. He may not have known he was doing it at the time, but it may have been the result.
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May 14, 2025
This book delves into profoundly dark and disturbing territory, particularly the sections detailing child abuse, which were genuinely difficult to read. It's the kind of work that forces you to re-evaluate everything you thought you knew, prompting a critical examination of information, even from seemingly authoritative scientific sources. The book raises a chilling question: how much suffering and how many childhoods were affected before the reality of trauma was acknowledged? Given the widespread and long-held acceptance of Freud's theories, it's hard not to consider his role in the potential failure to adequately address these critical issues for so many years!
August 27, 2025
This book is very well written documenting the stances that Freud took on Psychology Theories that are still used today. Even though it has the Author's opinion in his writing he is very thorough in presenting the facts first and explaining the medical terms that are used in this book, which were originally in German might I add. It is overall very interesting and disturbing about what went on in Medical Offices in the 17, 18, and early 19th centuries. It kind of explains how we got to where we are today in the Medical Industry. Too many things get let go and soon no one is around to object and it becomes the norm.
October 9, 2025
This book was recommended by Candace Owens, and I think I will need to dig a little further to put it in context. I admittedly don’t have a ton of background information on Freud‘s contributions to modern psychology, but I did find the content of this book very disturbing! I I think we’ve come a long way. I appreciated the lengthy post script to the numerous additions as well, they gave some explanation in context.
October 27, 2025
I read this book because I had heard that it showed that Freud changed his mind on childhood sexual abuse to protect his (abusive) friends. I did not see this reflected in the book. Rather, it seems he changed his mind on this because his colleagues did not want anything to do with him when he held the belief that parents, particularly fathers, sometimes sexually abuse their children, and this causes trauma. Still, an interesting read on the history of psychoanalysis.
December 5, 2023
😤 Freud, you wuss! Very frustrating to read about his cowardice and the blindness and inability to accept, or allow to become public, the horrific truth of those around him (and later him). Also, by mercy, some of those descriptions of cases of sexual abuse early on in the book are horrifically graphic and nauseating, more so than I've ever read before from those times. 🤢
September 4, 2025
Quick read, fairly well written. Fascinating history of Freud, and his betrayal of patents for political expediency. He chose to not believe actual victims of sexual abuse as children, and now Freudian psychiatrists all consider such abuse to be fantasy. Such a re-victimization of victims. Important book.
September 18, 2025
I read this book because I'm in Candace Owen's book club. And because I'm on a journey to "unlearn" everything that I was taught in high school & college. I read this book after I read CHAOS and Hollywood Babylon. This book connected even more dots but also raised more questions. It was an excellent book but I want to know more!
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