Word: freude
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...chapter on Freud in Paris is largely conjecture, based mostly on vague circumstancial evidence about medical activities in late 19th century France. In a passage indicative of the thin ice his assumptions slide on, Masson admits that, "although we cannot prove, in the strict sense of the word, that Freud, too, witnessed such autopsies, it seems very probable that...
...Freud, however, was apparently not "haunted" by his earlier theory, and he wrote in 1925 that "I was at last obliged to recognize that these scenes of seduction had never taken place, and that they were only fantasies which my patients had made...
...Assault on Truth raises important questions about the origins of psychoanalysis and the rationale for Freud's emphasis on fantasy life, but it may not--as Masson predicts--signal the imminent demise of Freudian psychoanalysis. He clearly distorts much of Freud's later work in order to bring out a contrast with his earlier theories. Freud never excluded real experiences from the realm of psychoanalysis, as Masson contends, but rather came to recognize the importance of fantasy and of personal distortions of actual occurrences in shaping human recollections. General Freudian dian orthodoxy involves a mixture of the two "realities...
Because of this, the book is important as intellectual history, but comes up short as a real challenge to orthodox psychoanalytic theory. Masson has helped to identify the blurring distinctions between fantasy and reality, the modern denial of absolutes. As he has pointed out elsewhere, Freud's emphasis on fantasy has partially led to relativistic concepts in modern ethical, anthropological, and sociological theories...
More important still is Masson's concluding argument which suggests that the denial of childhood experiences in psychoanalysis has allowed and condoned an oppression of female patients by a male-dominated profession. To Masson, Freud's theories ignore the early sexual traumas many women suffer, and therefore have led to undue skepticism towards the frequent, and very real, occurrence of incest and child rape...