Fact and Fantasy in the Seduction Theory: A Historical Review

Abstract

This article surveys Freud's various versions of the seduction theory, from 1896 to 1933. It is concluded that the seduction theory had never been based on the patients' direct statements and conscious recall of seduction by the father in early childhood--unlike what Freud was to state much later (1933). This early seduction was mostly reconstructed by Freud from the patient's verbal material and behavior in treatment (including memories of sexual experiences from later childhood) which he interpreted as disguised and incomplete "reproductions" and reenactments of the original seduction trauma. Further, the external trauma was never meant to account by itself for the later neurotic symptoms. The "delayed action" of its unconscious memory, producing the repression of an event from the time of puberty, was a necessary part of the process. Thus internal psychic transformations and conflicts, anticipating Freud's later emphasis on fantasy and psychic reality, were already an intrinsic part of the seduction etiology of 1896. It is also noted that the father played no central role in the original theory as presented in 1896; it is only in the letters to Fliess that the father emerged as the prime seducer. The implications of this clarification of the seduction theory for the understanding of the changes and continuity in the development of Freud's theories are highlighted; their relevance to ongoing issues in psychoanalysis about the role of external trauma, fantasy, and reconstruction are briefly examined.

“I no Longer Believe”: Did Freud Abandon the Seduction Theory?

“…It is, in fact, already a complex psychological theory, with a place for the work of repression, defense, and the unconscious (see Garcia 1987;Schimek 1987). As Freud put it, "no hysterical symptom can arise from a real experience alone" (1896a, p. 197).…”

“…It is he-the analyst-who must carry the conviction of reality. Schimek (1987) argues persuasively for this reading, according to which Freud reconstructed incest rather than having patients report it to him. Schimek finds this significant because he takes it to refute Masson's claim that Freud suppressed evidence of seduction.…”

Freud's view of hysteria in light of modern trauma research

“…This view was strongly criticized by his contemporaries (Masson, 1992). Finally, as Freud began to conceptualize childhood sexuality, sexual traumas were relegated to an equal status with fantasies, since the principles of libido psychology no longer required that a child's sexual awakening needed to be explained by external causes (Schimek, 1987;Eissler, 1993).…”

“…Furthermore, Freud did not change his view on the relatively common prevalence of child sexual abuse (Freud, 1931, p. 232). But as Schimek (1987) and Eissler (1993) note, when Freud discovered the existence of infantile sexuality, sexual abuse of children for all practical purposes lost its significance as the aetiology of hysterical neurosis. This was because he felt that external reasons were no longer needed to explain the awakening of infantile sexuality.…”

Jeffrey Masson and Freud's seduction theory: a new fable based on old myths

“…SeeCioffi (1972Cioffi ( , 1974,Macmillan (1977Macmillan ( , 1991,Steele (1982),Thornton (1983),Schimek (1987),Smith (1991),Esterson (1993), Israëls and Schatzman (1993),Scharnberg (1993),and Powell and Boer (1994), all of whom have disputed Freud's retrospective accounts of the episode. 3 Several examples of the analytic technique of reconstruction, i.e.…”