The Seduction Theory
On April 21, 1896, Freud presented a paper (The Aetiology of Hysteria) to the Viennese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology. The meeting was chaired by Richard von Krafft-Ebing, who was the department head of psychiatry at the University of Vienna. Freud by this time believed that sex was the causal factor in the development of hysteria. In this paper, Freud stated that all of his hysteric patients, which consisted of 12 women and 6 men, had told him about an incident in childhood in which they had been seduced by an older adult (“the seduction theory”). Freud concluded that childhood sexual traumas, which were repressed until psychoanalysis was able to uncover the memories, were the cause of hysterical symptoms. This lecture received a cool response from the Society’s members. As Freud would write to his friend Wilhelm Fliess, his lecture was “met with an icy reception from the asses, and from Krafft-Ebing the strange comment: It sounds like a scientific fairy tale. … They can all go to hell” (cited in Masson, 1984, p. 9).
About a year and a half later, for reasons that are still uncertain, Freud changed his mind about his seduction theory. Freud now claimed that in the majority of patients, the childhood sexual trauma described had not actually taken place, but the patients instead had been reporting fantasies that they believed to be true. The events were real to the patients, and just as traumatic as if the sexual trauma had actually occurred. This new interpretation allowed Freud to keep the core of his original theory, that hysteria was the result of the repression of a sexual event, but now the sexual trauma was imagined as opposed to real. Freud would subsequently develop the Oedipus complex from this new interpretation of what his patients told him.
Prior to continuing this timeline leading up to Freud’s American visit, I thought it would be useful to present a controversial historical interpretation about why Freud abandoned his initial belief that the sexual incidents described by his patients were real. This will allow me to again emphasize the importance of historical research in helping us to differentiate on the historical fact/historical fiction continuum (see Chapter 2). Specifically, Jeffrey Masson (1984) in The Assault on Truth: Freud’s Suppression of the Seduction Theory claimed that Freud’s seduction theory so outraged his colleagues that Freud was subsequently ostracized from the medical community. According to Masson, Freud changed his interpretation not because he changed his mind, but because of social pressure. Yet, as Esterson (2002, p. 130) notes, “there is abundant documentary evidence that demonstrates that Masson’s account of Freud’s being shunned by his colleagues is contradicted by the historical facts.” For example, Freud was able to publish a paper in 1896 on his seduction theory, and shortly after was promoted to the rank of full professor. It does not follow that an ostracized individual would be allowed to publish a paper on the topic responsible for his being shunned, and receive the necessary votes from colleagues to obtain the high honor of receiving the rank of full professor.
Freud’s seduction lecture did receive a cool response from his colleagues at the Viennese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology (Esterson, 2002). Yet, “it was not outrage at Freud’s raising the issue of childhood sexual abuse that was the source of their skepticism. Contemporary documents indicate that opposition to the seduction theory claims was based either on a belief in the predominantly constitutional basis of nervous disorders or, more often, on the grounds that findings obtained by means of Freud’s clinical procedures were unreliable” (Esterson, 2002, pp. 117-118). It was the method being attacked—which meant there was little substance to support the theory. Even Freud’s own writings show “that he had often used highly suggestive procedures to elicit the memories of childhood “seductions” from his patients” (Powell & Boer, 1994, p. 1283).
As previously discussed, the historical record not matching later interpretations surrounding Freud and the history of psychoanalysis have occurred. Freud’s seduction theory provides several more examples worth exploring. Specifically, Freud would write the following in his An Autobiographical Study first published in 1925:
If the reader feels inclined to shake his head at my credulity, I cannot altogether blame him; though I may plead that this was at a time when I was intentionally keeping my critical faculty in abeyance so as to preserve an unprejudiced and receptive attitude towards the many novelties which were coming to my notice every day. When, however, I 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 upon them, I was for some time completely at a loss. (cited in Israëls & Schatzman, 1993, p. 26)
Futhermore, Freud would write that:
I do not believe even now that I forced the seduction phantasies on my patients, that I ‘suggested’ them. I had in fact stumbled for the first time upon the Oedipus complex, which was later to assume such an overwhelming importance, but which I did not recognize as yet in its disguise of phantasy (cited in Esterson, 2001, p. 341).
Here Freud presents himself as an innocent bystander who initially was deceived by his patients, but was ultimately wise enough to uncover the truth. This version “attained the status of historical fact for much of the twentieth century” (Esterson, 2001, pp. 329-330). However, what Freud published in 1896 (i.e., the historical data fragments) flatly contradicts his later recreation in his autobiography. For example, Freud tells a much different version than patients freely providing him fantastic stories, and vigorously defended his seduction theory against charges that his patients were simply telling him phantasies. As Freud would write in 1896, “Before they come for analysis the patients know nothing about these scenes. They are indignant as a rule if we warn them that such scenes are going to emerge. Only the strongest compulsion of the treatment can induce them to embark on a reproduction of them” (cited in Israël & Schatzman, 1993, p. 24). Freud in defending his seduction theory would also write in 1896, “Whatever you may think about the conclusions I have come to, I must ask you not to regard them as the fruit of idle speculation. They are based on a laborious individual examination of patients which has in most cases taken up a hundred or more hours of work” (cited in Israël & Schatzman, 1993, p. 38). Freud’s own writings are not consistent with the later version of the innocent bystander who was initially “duped” by his patients, but ultimately wise enough to ascertain the truth.
Also of interest, Freud had written a series of letters, which he believed would remain confidential, between 1887 through 1904 to his friend Wilhelm Fliess. When Freud discovered that the letters had not been destroyed in the 1930s he wrote apprehensively, “I do not want any of them to become known to so-called posterity” (cited in Israël & Schatzman, 1993, p. 47). In a letter dated September 21, 1897, Freud had written to Fliess that he no longer believed in his seduction theory, but would not make his reversal public. Freud provides 4 motives for his reversal. Let’s concentrate on the first. As Freud wrote, “The continual disappointment in my efforts to bring my analysis to a real conclusion; the running away of people who for a period of time had been most gripped; the absence of the complete successes on which I had counted; the possibility of explaining to myself the partial successes in other ways, in the usual fashion…” (cited in Israël & Schatzman, 1993, p. 48). Freud, who believed that he was writing in confidence to a close friend at the time, notes that he was not having therapeutic success using his psychoanalytic techniques based upon his seduction theory.
In an additional letter on February 9, 1898, he wrote to Fliess, “The cases of hysteria are proceeding especially poorly. I shall not finish a single one this year either” (cited in Esterson, 2001, p. 334). Freud was not above presenting therapeutic success in published articles despite privately knowing the ineffectiveness of the treatment (e.g., Freud’s disastrous use of cocaine to treat his friend’s morphine addiction which was presented in Chapter 5). Unfortunately, the same pattern of behavior occurred here. In 1898, 13 years after publishing his mistaken writings about cocaine�
�s treatment benefits, Freud would again in a published paper claim great successes, this time with his new procedure to treat the most severe cases of hysteria (Esterson, 2001).
Likewise, in both Freud’s An Autobiographical Study and later in his New Introductory Letters on Psychoanalysis, Freud states that the seducer of his female patients was almost always the patient’s father. This later reinterpretation directly contradicts what Freud had previously written. Specifically, the seducers when the seduction theory was first published in 1896 were older children, adults who did not know the child, and adults who knew the child (e.g., teachers, servants), but were not related. As Esterson (2001) points out, Freud in preparing for the 1924 reprinting had reread the 1896 papers. Thus, the inconsistency cannot have been a simple issue of unreliable memories with the passage of time. Likewise, it is not the case (as some have interpreted) that Freud was hiding the truth that fathers were typically the wrongdoer. What appears most likely is that Freud “could not resist the temptation to bring the 1896 clinical claims into line with his Oedipal explanation of girls’ supposed phantasies of seduction in Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1916-1917), namely, that they are ‘retrospectively phantasying a desired object’ into their early childhood to spare themselves shame about infantile masturbation” (Esterson, 2001, p. 342).
In summary, the purpose of examining the seduction theory controversy was to provide another example of the importance of historical research. If we were to simply rely upon Freud’s recreated version that he provided later in his life or Masson’s controversial version at face value without examining the relevant historical data fragments, we would be at a substantial disadvantage if our ultimate goal is to have an accurate assessment of what happened a long time ago.
Freud’s Other Important Publications
Let’s return back to our timeline filling in some of the important events leading up to Freud’s American trip. In 1896, Freud’s father passed away, and he experienced severe depression. During this period, Freud attempted to analyze himself. Since he could not use free association or any form of talking cure, as he would have to be both patient and doctor, he instead attempted to interpret his own dreams. This effort resulted in perhaps Freud’s most well-known work, The Interpretation of Dreams (Die Traumdeutung), published in 1900, which initially took 6 years to sell 600 copies (Hergenhahn, 1997). Thus, Dreams did not receive instant attention, but would ultimately go through 8 editions during Freud’s lifetime. Without the American trip in 1909, this increased type of interest in his work would have been unlikely. Dreams contains such well-known concepts such as the difference between manifest content (the literal dream itself) and latent content (the underlying meaning encoded in symbols). Likewise, the concept of wish fulfillment, as well as Freud first outlining the Oedipus complex occurs in Dreams. Such topics as Freud’s sexual longings for his mother and a sexual desire towards his daughter were discussed. While I personally find Freud’s interpretations problematic, I would encourage you to read the book. It provides an example of what an exceptional writer Freud was. Dreams is available at the Internet Archive website (http://www.archive.org/).
One individual who did read The Interpretation of Dreams soon after its publication was Carl Jung, who would subsequently become a convert to psychoanalysis. Jung and Freud began corresponding regularly in April 1906, and became very close friends (the friendship would become permanently severed by 1913). Jung’s passion for Freud’s views seemed limitless, and Freud decided that Jung would be his heir and continue his work. For example, Freud in a letter to Jung said that “if I am Moses, then you are Joshua and will take possession of the promised land of psychiatry, which I shall only be able to glimpse from afar” (cited in Benjamin, 2006, p. 143). For those interested in the correspondence between Freud and Jung, see The Freud/Jung letters (McGuire, 1974), which also includes the letters that end the friendship. Sandor Ferenczi of Budapest (Hungary) also became a close friend with Freud after reading Dreams. The two men would vacation together and exchanged over a thousand letters between 1908 and 1933 (Jones, 1955). Both Jung and Ferenczi would accompany Freud to America in 1909.
In 1901, just a year after The Interpretation of Dreams was published, Freud would publish Psychopathology of Everyday Life. This book discussed parapraxes, which are small errors in everyday life that were described as unconsciously motivated (e.g., forgetting things, small accidents). The “Freudian slip,” or slip of the tongue (saying “sex” instead of “six”), is a concept from this book. Likewise in 1905, Freud would publish Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious and Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, which emphasized childhood sexuality. Leading up to Freud’s American trip, Freud was publishing at a prolific rate, but none of Freud’s works sold many copies, and few American psychologists read the German writings.
However, interest in Freud’s theories had begun to receive some attention, and he did begin to attract followers. For example, the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society was formed in 1908. Likewise, a “Freud Group” had been started in Zurich and was led by Jung. The first journal on psychoanalysis, The Yearbook for Psychoanalysis and Research in Psychopathology, was started in 1908 with Jung as the editor. The First Congress of Freudian Psychology occurred on April 26, 1908, at the Hotel Bristol in Salzburg, Austria. The event included 42 participants from several countries, and nine papers were read during the one day conference.
In America, James Jackson Putnam (1906), a distinguished Harvard University neurologist, published the first article (“Recent experiences in the study and treatment of hysteria at the Massachusetts General Hospital, with remarks on Freud’s method of treatment by “psycho-analysis””) on psychoanalytic therapy in an American journal, the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. Putnam would become over the years a loyal and devoted follower of Freud, and was influential in ultimately establishing psychoanalysis in the United States. Putnam became the first president of the American Psychoanalytic Association in 1911. Also, the Journal of Abnormal Psychology reviewed Freud’s The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, which was the first review of one of his books in an American journal. Despite the above recognition, psychoanalysis remained a minor movement (i.e., it was not widespread nor a widely accepted method of treatment), but Freud’s influence was increasing and his private practice at this time was flourishing.
G. Stanley Hall: The Great Organizer
Prior to discussing Freud’s trip below, I will provide some necessary background information about G. (Granville) Stanley Hall, who extended the invitation to Freud. Hall is well-known for his large list of “first” achievements. Hall received the first doctorate in American psychology, at Harvard University, and would subsequently become the first American to study under Wilhelm Wundt, the father of modern experimental psychology, at Leipzig University in Germany. After returning to the United States and giving a successful series of lectures at Harvard, Hall would land a position at Johns Hopkins University where he established the first American psychology laboratory. Hall also established the first psychology journal in the United States in 1887, The American Journal of Psychology (Hall would also establish Pedagogical Seminary in 1891, now called the Journal of Genetic Psychology; the Journal of Religious Psychology in 1904; and the Journal of Applied Psychology in 1917).
In 1888, Hall would leave Hopkins to become the first President of Clark University, but was simultaneously a professor of psychology and was influential in making Clark University one of the leading graduate programs in America for psychology at that time. Clark University not only had an outstanding reputation in North America, but was well known by Europeans as well. Most importantly, Hall was one of the first (perhaps the first) American psychologists to become interested in Freud’s theories. As Evans and Koelsch state (1985, p. 943), “Hall had been long attracted to Freud’s ideas. He even owned one of the 257 copies sold of Freud’s book on aphasia. As early as 1901, Hall was mentioning Freud’s work in his lectures at Clark.”
Perhaps more important for Freud, Hall was a great organizer and promoter of psychology. For example, in 1892, Hall had invited the most influential psychologists from around the country to meet in Worchester to form an association. His efforts resulted in the founding of the American Psychological Association (APA), and Hall was elected the APAs first president. The APA remains one of the most influential organizations for psychologists in the world. Hall would subsequently use his skills to promote psychoanalysis as well. For example, Hall ensured that Freud’s lectures at the Clark University celebration received positive coverage by the local newspapers. Hall even gained Freud some greater press coverage by ghostwriting a glowing article for the national publication, the Nation (Evans & Koelsch, 1985).
Freud’s initial invitation to America occurred when G. Stanley Hall was planning the 20th Anniversary celebration of Clark University by inviting distinguished lecturers to give talks at a variety of conferences (Hall previously organized a smaller 10th anniversary celebration). A total of 29 lecturers participated from a variety of disciplines including psychology, physics, math, chemistry, biology, astronomy, anthropology, education and history. This esteemed group included two Nobel Prize winners. Of the 29 speakers, 8 came from the behavioral sciences. The most well-known American psychologist to participate was Edward Bradford Titchener, who had established structuralism in the United States, after studying under Wundt at Leipzig University. Wundt also received an invitation, but declined. “Wundt would not travel even a few miles for an official international congress and most certainly would not travel thousands of miles for a convocation; he gave his advanced age as an excuse” (Evans & Koelsch, 1985, p. 942). When Wundt declined, Hall offered the spot to Herman Ebbinghaus, whose work on memory is still referenced in psychology textbooks today. Although Ebbinghaus accepted, he unfortunately died prior to the anniversary celebration.
Freud, Murder, and Fame: Lessons in Psychology’s Fascinating History Page 8
