Part 1: The Freud-Masson Seduction Theory Controversy

Reconstructed...June 29th, updated Aug. 9th, 2009...


I will aim to make this my most definitive, up-to-date DGB editorial essay on the Freud vs. Masson Seduction Theory Controversy -- complete with all its associated moral-ethical and legal issues -- and how this still debated controversy fits into the overall theory, practice, and evolution of Psychoanalysis, real and/or ideal.

For those of you who know little or nothing about this controversy, let me fill you in very quickly.

In 1896, Freud posed a theory -- albeit very briefly (it lasted less than a year) that hysteria was basically caused by the repression of a childhood sexual assault memory (or series of associated memories) -- either a flat out forceful childhood rape or a more manipulative seduction. The main perpetrators of these 'crimes against children' were fathers, older brothers, uncles, or 'friends' of the family.

Now looking at this from a 2009 perspective, I would say that there was probably a significant element of truth in what Freud was arguing back in 1896. However, Freud had a strong tendency throughout his career to jump to fast conclusions on the basis of over-generalizations that were provocative, controversial, and sparked off strong elements of social and/or professional protest while at the same time not always being strongly supported by the bulk of the clinical evidence that he stated supported his 'provocative scientific conclusions'.

One is tempted to say -- at least I am -- that there was as much 'provocative writing journalist' in Freud's character and behavior as there was 'unbiased, objective, scientific researcher and theorist'. Freud was always 'champing at the bit' wanting to go where no researcher, clinician, and/or theorist had gone before him, to lead the way into new and provocative forms of clinical theory and therapy -- to make new discoveries like an 'inventor' -- whether these discoveries be relevant to either 'medical' therapy and/or 'psycho'-therapy.

There was a danger here. Freud's 'innovativeness', his 'creativity', and his willingness to 'take a risk' constituted both the best and the worst parts of his character. In both his personal and professional life. On the one hand, almost all of present-day clinical psychology and psychotherapy is indebted to the richness and creativeness of Freud's mind relative to the laying of its theoretical and therapeutic foundations.

However, on the other hand, both in his personal and his professional life, Freud committed a number of 'ethical transgressions' that bordered on both the 'inexcusable' and the 'criminally negligent'. I am talking primarily about two series of events here: 1. Freud's almost 20 year 'personal and professional affair' with cocaine (1884 to 1904, see my article on Freud and Cocaine soon to come, added Aug. 9th, 2009); and 2. the Emma Ekstein medical debacle which Masson speculates to have possibly had a profound affect on Freud's abandonment of The Seduction Theory. Both series of events violated medicine's Hippocratic Oath: 'First, do the patient no harm.' -- Hippocrates

Relative to this 'risk-taking' aspect in Freud's character, Freud's co-writer in 'Studies in Hysteria', 1893,1895, Joseph Breuer was probably the much more 'grounded and ethical, scientific researcher and theorist'. Breuer didn't want to jump to the 'sexual abuse' conclusion -- he was happy with their preceding 'traumacy theory' which on the whole was a better theory than Freud's 1896 Seduction Theory because it 'fit' a greater percentage of the clinical population.

Indeed, Freud's and Breuer's Traumacy Theory is relevant to all of us because we all have to meet with our 'first rejections and narcissistic traumas' early in life, invariably in our first 4 or 5 years.

At some point in these early years we are all going to face the 'harshness' of life in one way or another -- an abandonment, a betrayal, a discrimination, a tragedy, a failure, a costly mistake, an egotistical or narcissistic blow to our self-esteem -- and one or more of our memories is going to catch this event because it was significant in our evolution -- for better or for worse.

But a 'childhood sexual assault' -- that is going to affect a smaller proportion of the general population, not enough of the population to build an entire theory on its premise, except as a smaller derivative of the Traumacy Theory.

Certainly, Freud was not, and is not, the only person in the world who has ever been guilty of 'jumping to fast conclusions' and 'overgeneralizing'. We all can be deemed guilty of these charges at different time, and in different contexts, in our lives -- some more often and with more drastic consequences than others.

However, when you are the creator of a brand new school of psychology -- a theory of the functioning of the human mind -- it is extremely important that the conclusions and generalizations you come to as a theorist are 'good conclusions' and based on 'good generalizations' relative to the clinical evidence that is available to you.

Otherwise, the whole foundation of the school of psychology you are building is going to creak at its very foundations -- and if the conclusions and/or over-generalizations that you have made are faulty and bad enough -- your school of psychology is likely going to come tumbling down at some point like a house of cards.

The only thing that is going to delay this structural collapse from happening is perhaps otherwise intelligent people who are 'too loyal to the status quo, too loyal to the assumed and presumed ideas of The Establishment they work for, and who either do not see, do not want to see, are too 'brainwashed' to see, are too scared to challenge, and/or are too happy with their $100,000 plus salary and lifestyle to want to challenge, an assumption and/or a whole set of assumptions that may be simply wrong, and/or -- worse -- pathological. This is where Erich Fromm's concept of 'the pathology of normalcy' (See 'The Sane Society') comes to life, and needs to be fully examined by those theorists who are still idealistically striving for 'the pursuit of truth, fairness, justice and The Enlightenment Way'.

It is easy to lose touch with these values in a sea of cultural and individual, pathological narcissism.

I have another dialectic formula here that is not too profound. Cultural narcissism stimulates and shapes more and more individual narcissism. And individual narcissism, in turn, stimulates and shapes more and more cultural narcissism. The two co-factors -- cultural narcissism and individual narcissism -- are dialectically and often pathologically entwined. Each co-influences the embellishment and exasperation of the other with both individual and cultural narcissism escalating in the process.

However, pathological narcissism -- in and by itself -- is a house of cards that will eventually tumble under its own weight and instability. Worded otherwise, unbridled individual and cultural narcissism will eventually self-destruct in its own toxic poisons.

Historically, we have seen this over and over again -- from Plato's time in Athens to hedonistic fall of Rome.

We have seen this in the 'deconstruction' and decline of the Roman Church once too much narcissistic greed and power had permeated inside leading to one or more various 'religious Reformations'.

We have seen this in The American Revolution -- too much greed and power coming from the British and 'marginalizing' the Americans.

We have seen this in The French Revolution. Again too much power and greed at the top.

We have seen this in The American Civil War where slaves were being treated as 'non-people.


Now many men on this side of the Atlantic Ocean are wondering whether or not -- if not downright righteously and angrily believing (myself included) that -- the 'pendulum of civil justice has not swung significantly too far the other way incriminating men for domestic violations or sexual assaults where there is more of a need for 'bilateral, two-way, two fault, dialectic justice'

We have seen corporate narcissism just recently bury (or allegedly bury) the American Financial Sector -- and with it the Main Street Housing Market and both collapsed together as well as most of the other financial markets around the world that were connected to these two American markets.

Wherever cultural and individual narcissism proliferates over other more ethical human behavior patterns, generally, there is eventually a collapse. (The only people not collapsing under this this rule of thumb are the ones that are high enough on the corporate ladder that they have found other ways of narcissistically protecting themselves like these 'back door bonus contracts, escape clauses, and severance packages. These corporate executives are like 'pilots who jump from their burning plane with their parachutes attached while the rest of the passengers go down with the plane -- in flames.)

Ayn Rand's ethics -- the core of her ethical-morality -- 'The Virtue of Selfishness' is fundamentally flawed to the extent that it denies Kantian 'ethical reciprocity'. (Don't do unto others what you would not others to do to you.)

Selfishness or narcissism in and by itself, is an ethical-moral value that is one-sided, it is homeostatically out of balance relative to living in any supposed 'civil society'.

Narcissism absolutely needs its polar, paradoxical, ethical-moral 'alter-ego' in order to be homeostatically balanced properly -- and that alter-ego is 'altruism'.


Similarly, if an organization, an institution, a corporation, a society, a culture --like The Psychoanalytic Institute -- does not contain within it a 'deconstructive element', 'a Deconstructive Ego', then it will narcissistically pathologize, toxify, and ultimately self-destruct...

The Deconstructive Ego is the mental, the psychological, the philosophical, the legal, and the political equivalent of 'the liver'. Biologically, the liver removes toxins and pathogens from the body in whatever means it has available to it -- the bowels, the bladder, the immune system, the skin...

The Deconstructive Ego functions in similar fashion on a psychological, philosophical, legal, and political level. It removes pathogens and toxins from the individual's psyche, the organization's psyche, the society's psyche, the culture's psyche.

If there is no Deconstructive Ego, no Deconstructive Element, in a society -- which happens when there is no 'freedom of speech', 'freedom of the press' and 'freedom of philosophical analysis' -- then overwhelmingly narcissistic toxins and pathogens are going to poison the society, the culture, until it self-destructs.

Back to Freud and Psychoanalysis.

Freud was a very active 'Creative-Constructive' theorist. He was also a very active Deconstructionist. Freud was constantly changing and modifying his own theories throughout his own lifetime.

However, Freud was not very good at accepting -- or even properly listening too -- the 'deconstructionist criticisms' of other Psychoanalytic and non-Psychoanalytic theorists. He was too righteous, too narcissistic, too authoritarian, too anal-retentive when it came to listening to other theorists criticize -- and modify -- his own Psychoanalytic theories. How many theorists did he lose -- I can't count them all -- Breuer, Adler, Jung, Reik, Rank, Ferenczi, and that is just off the top of my head; indeed, I could also include the 'post-Freudians', the 'neo-Freudians', and the 'anti-Freudians'...Erich Fromm, Karen Horney, Leif Erickson, Harry Stack Sullivan, Berne, Perls, and who knows whether Freud would have ever accepted the 'Object Relationists' and all their various deviations from Classical Freudian Psychoanalysis such as: Melanie Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott, Guntrip, Kohut...and many others...

And last of all their was Jeffrey Masson who turned our attention back to Freud's abandonment of the seduction theory in 1896. Why did Freud abandon a theory that seemed to have at least a significant 'truth element' in it?

Masson's answer to this question was rather harsh and non-forgiving -- rightly or wrongly so -- which in turn brought down the rather harsh and non-forgiving 'righteous superego' of the Psychoanalytic Establishment on Masson.

Freud 'lost moral courage' -- according to Masson's interpretation, analysis, and judgment of the situation. (Masson, The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of The Seduction Theory', 1984, 1985, 1992, preface)

Freud lost moral courage because he did not want to jeopardize his career in medicine, psychiatry, and Psychoanalysis. He succumbed to the external social and economic pressures, forces, leverage applied against him by 'non-believing' Psychiatrists who had the political and economic power to make or break Freud's early Psychiatric and Psychoanalytic career. So argues Masson (The Assault, 1992.)

Masson could be at least partly right. It is quite possible that Freud had legitimate reason to fear the 'greater political and economic power' of other, older Psychiatrists and Doctors in his profession who could have potentially ruined his career.

Indeed, it could be easily argued that what could have happened to Freud in 1896 if he had continued to 'open the social can of worms' of childhood sexual abuse is exactly what did happen to Masson in the 1980s some 85 to 90 years later.

Masson's career in Psychoanalysis was destroyed in the 1980s because he ethically persisted in an area where Freud -- for whatever reason -- backed away from, and didn't come back too often to this most controversial of issues, for the remainder of his long career (some 40 years).

Still, I will follow and accept Masson's logical argument about 50 percent of the way -- and no further. Not into the 'loss of moral courage' judgment.

If Freud wanted only to stay clear away from the most controversial issue of childhood sexual abuse, he could have done this much more easily than by 'turning Psychoanalysis upside down to do it'.

Freud didn't need to fully engage in, obsess with, and trumpet his 'new' Psychoanalytic theory of 'Childhood Sexuality, Oedipal and Fantasy Theory' just to escape the heat of talking about childhood sexual abuse and its relation to hysteria.

So why then did Freud turn Psychoanalysis upside down from 'The Seduction Theory' to 'The Childhood Sexual Fantasy/Oedipal Theory'?

Freud did this between 1896 and let us say 1899 (his essay 'Screen Memories') because he thought he was right. Period.

No loss of moral courage. Or maybe some loss of moral courage to the extent that he steered away from the topic of childhood sexual abuse for most of the rest of his career.

However, how many of wouldn't have done the same? Particularly, in that 'highly patriarchal culture'. Knowing that by 'blowing the horn of child sexual abuse' you might be jeopardizing your own career, your own economic stability. It may be a sad statement of human motivation stemming all the way back to the philosophy of 'Sophism' in ancient Greece (who believed basically in the principle of 'subjective ethical relativism' based on 'monetary narcissism'), through Stoicism, Cynicism, Epicureanism, Hobbes, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Marx's 'cynical pessimism' relative to 'Narcissistic Capitalism': 'When money talks, ethics walks.' (my personal philosophical rendition of what Marx believed).

Ethical righteousness supersedes personal narcissism only when the personal narcissism doesn't involve us. (Call this 'the philosophy and psychology of personal and/or group exclusionism and marginalization').

Now, to be sure, this is a generalization as well -- and some might say an over-generalization. Every generalization carries the seeds of its own self-destruction which is contained in exactly that part of 'life and truth' that lies outside of the boundaries of the generalization. (This is a DGB Post-Hegelian extrapolation of a Hegelian idea.)

Narcissism and ethics are 'dialectic antagonists and war partners' (unless you follow 'The Virtue of Selfishness' Philosophy of Ayn Rand). We all have to walk the plank of personal narcissism vs. personal ethics each and every day. Dionysus and Narcissus vs. Apollo. (Perhaps an unfair fight -- two against one.) We all have to make a 'Kierkegaardian either/or choice' at different points in the day as we walk out onto our existential plank -- the plank and the choices that end up defining us:

Either jump into Dionysus and Narcissus' (non-ethical) pool. Or jump into Apollo's (ethical) pool. Depends partly on our character, partly on the context of the situaiton. Our impulses. Our restraints. Our values. The extent of the social, political and/or economic forces being used against us. And/or on the restraints and forces being used by ourselves, against ourselves.

Apollo, Dionysus, Zeus, Hera, Gaia, Approdite, Aries, Cupid, God, Satan, Jesus...are all mythological-relgious projections and extensions of ourselves and our own inner conflicts between good and evil, narcissism and altruism, narcissism and ethics...patriarchy and matriarchy...love and war, love, lust, and reason...

Back to the issue of 'moral courage'...

How many of us don't choose to 'tell people what they don't want to hear' particularly if that person is our boss who could potentially end our job or career with perhaps just a little too much 'honesty', 'bluntness', 'internal congruence and essence' coming out of our mouth?

How many politicians turn their back on the number of ethical transgressions committed in the process of 'government functioning' (and/or dysfunctioning)?

Would Dr. Masson have shown the same 'moral courage' if he had the opportunity to re-live the 1980s all over again? Would he have re-endured a 10 year lawsuit against Janet Malcolm and The New Yorker -- all over again -- if he had the chance to 're-trumpet his moral righteousness and courage'?

Maybe. Maybe not. I take my hat off to you Dr. Masson. I think that your work has been important -- indeed, imperative -- to the proper evolution of Psychoanalysis and Clinical Psychology/Psychotherapy/Psychiatry in general.

I respect your moral courage.

Which is not to say that I think you are completely right about Freud's motivation -- or the validity of The Seduction Theory in general.

The Seduction Theory is a lopsided, one-sided, overly reductionist theory -- just as The Oedipal Theory is on the other side of The Psychoanalytic fence. It remains for a Post-Hegelian philosopher and psychological theorist like myself to integrate or synthesize the differences between Freud's Traumacy Theory, his Seduction Theory, and his Oedipal Theory -- along with any other theories that may be equally relevant. (Adler, Jung, Reich, Fairbairn, Guntrip, Berne, Kohut, Perls...)

And everything that I have read from other biographers and theorists -- other than from you, Dr. Masson -- have stated that Freud did not lack moral courage, in fact, this was a strength, not a weakness, in his character. There is an Erich Fromm quote in this regard that is particularly relevant. (Sorry, I will have to search for it -- I think I will find it in 'Sigmund Freud's Mission'.

No, Freud may have committed some ethical transgressions in his life, knowingly or unknowingly, such as in his 'trumpeting of cocaine usage and giving it to patients', such as in the Emma Ekstein medical fiasco, such as in perhaps steering away from the controversial issue of childhood sexual abuse. But not to the tune of turning Psychoanalysis on its ear -- and re-theorizing everything.

This he did because he believed what he was doing was right -- even if it was partly or mainly wrong in the extent of his 'theoretical over-compensations'.

Freud was a 'theoretical extremist'. He would either steer 'hard right' and/or overcompensate and then 'steer hard left'.

It remains for other, clearer heads, and more moderate minds, to creatively integrate Freud's left and right, up and down, theoretical extremism.

That is our intent here -- in Hegel's Hotel.


-- dgb, June 29th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations,

-- Are still in process...


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Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dr. Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (born March 28, 1941 as Jeffrey Lloyd Masson in Chicago, Illinois) is an American author, residing in New Zealand. Masson is known for his conclusions about Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis. In his book The Assault on Truth, Masson argued that Freud may have abandoned his seduction theory because he feared that granting the truth of his female patients' claims that they had been sexually abused would hinder the acceptance of his psychoanalytic methods. He has also written about animals and animal rights.

Contents

1 Life and career
2 Views on the Seduction Theory
3 Recent work
4 Personal life
5 Name
6 Writings by Masson
6.1 Reviews of his books
7 References
8 Further reading
9 External links



Life and career

Masson is the son of Jacques Moussaieff, a French Mizrahi Sephardic Jew of Bukharian ancestry, and Diana (Dina) Zeiger from a Ashkenazi strict Orthodox Jewish family. Both parents were followers of the British Jewish mystic Paul Brunton. During the 1940s and 1950s, Brunton often lived with them, eventually designating Jeffrey as his heir apparent. In 1956, Diana and Jacques Masson moved to Uruguay because Brunton believed that a third world war was imminent. Jeffrey and his sister Linda followed in 1959.

At Brunton's urging, Masson went to Harvard University to study Sanskrit. While at Harvard, Masson became disillusioned with Brunton. Brunton and his influence and the Masson family form the subject of Masson's autobiographical book My Father's Guru: A Journey Through Spirituality and Disillusion. Harvard University granted Masson a B.A. in 1964 and a Ph.D. with Honors in 1970. His degrees were in Sanskrit and Indian Studies. While undertaking his Ph.D., Masson also studied, supported by fellowships, at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, the University of Calcutta, and the University of Poona.

He taught Sanskrit and Indian Studies at the University of Toronto, 1969-80, reaching the rank of Professor. He has also held short term appointments at Brown University, the University of California, and the University of Michigan. From 1981 to 1992, he was a Research Associate, Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies, at the University of California at Berkeley. He is currently an Honorary Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.


Views on the Seduction Theory

In 1970, Masson began studying to become a psychoanalyst at the Toronto Psychoanalytic Institute, completing a full clinical training course in 1978. During this time, he befriended the psychoanalyst Kurt Eissler and became acquainted with Sigmund Freud's daughter Anna Freud. Eissler designated Masson to succeed him as Director of the Sigmund Freud Archives after his and Anna Freud's death. Masson learned German and studied the history of psychoanalysis. In 1980 Masson was appointed Projects Director of the Freud Archives, with full access to Freud's correspondence and other unpublished papers. While perusing this material, Masson concluded that Freud might have rejected the seduction theory in order to advance the cause of psychoanalysis and to maintain his own place within the psychoanalytic inner circle. [1]

Masson's actions, along with those of Kurt Eissler and Peter Swales, form the subject of In the Freud Archives, an article in the New Yorker by Janet Malcolm, which she later expanded into a book.

In 1981, Masson's controversial conclusions were discussed in a series of New York Times articles by Ralph Blumenthal, to the dismay of the psychoanalytic establishment. Masson was subsequently dismissed from his position as project director of the Freud Archives. and stripped of his membership in psychoanalytic professional societies. Masson was defended by Alice Miller [2] and Muriel Gardiner ("While striving not to take sides," Gardiner said, "I consider him a good and energetic worker and a worthwhile scholar.") [3]

Masson later wrote several books critical of psychoanalysis, including The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory. In the introduction to The Assault on Truth, Masson admitted that, "My pessimistic conclusions may possibly be wrong. The documents may in fact allow a very different reading." [4] Janet Malcolm interviewed Masson at length when writing her long New Yorker article on this controversy. Masson sued the New Yorker for defamation, claiming that Malcolm had misquoted him. The ensuing trial drew considerable attention.[5]The decade-long, $US10 million lawsuit came to a close when the court ruled in the New Yorker 's favor.[6]

In 1985, Masson edited and translated the complete correspondence of Freud with Wilhelm Fliess after having convinced Anna Freud to make all of it available. He also looked up the original places and documents in La Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris,[7] where Freud had studied with Charcot. Masson has written that people used to be very interested in himself but as far as the cause was concerned, there is silence from the scientific community. [8]


[edit] Recent work
Since the early 1990s, Masson has written a number of books on the emotional life of animals, one of which, When Elephants Weep, has been translated into 20 languages. He has explained this radical change in the subject of his writings as follows:

“ "I'd written a whole series of books about psychiatry, and nobody bought them. Nobody liked them. Nobody. Psychiatrists hated them, and they were much too abstruse for the general public. It was very hard to make a living, and I thought, 'As long as I'm not making a living, I may as well write about something I really love: animals.'"[9] ”

Masson also wrote a book about his new home country New Zealand, including an interview with Sir Edmund Hillary. [10] Among other things, Masson and Hillary talk about Alexandra David-Neel and the story of her Tulpa, both of them having read her books Magic and Mystery in Tibet, Initiation and Initiates in Tibet and My Journey to Lhasa. Masson says that he met her in 1957 when he was 16, at her country house at Digne in the south of France.


Personal life

Masson is married to Leila Masson, a pediatrician. [11] They have two sons, Ilan and Manu. He also has a daughter, Simone, by a previous marriage. [12] Masson was once engaged to University of Michigan feminist legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon, who wrote the preface to his A Dark Science: Women, Sexuality, and Psychiatry in the Nineteenth Century.


Name

Jeffrey Masson's grandgrandfather Shlomo Moussaieff (rabbi) was a kabbalist and founder of the Bukharian Quarter in Jerusalem. His grandfather Henry Mousaieff changed his familyname from Moussaieff to Masson. Jeffrey Masson changed his middlename from Lloyd to Moussaieff.

Masson's father's first cousin is Shlomo Moussaieff (businessman). Masson's first cousin is pianist James Raphael and his second cousin is First Lady of Iceland Dorrit Moussaieff.


[edit] Writings by Masson
1974. "India and the Unconscious: Erik Erikson on Gandhi," International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 55: 519-26. Discussion by T. C. Sinha: 527.
1976. "Perversions-some observations", Israel Ann. Psychiat. rel. Disc., (1976b), 14, 354-61.
1976. (with Terri C. Masson) "The Navel of Neurosis: Trauma, Memory and Denial.", paper presented to the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Society [13]
1978 (with Terri C. Masson), "Buried Memories on the Acropolis. Freud's Relation to Mysticism and Anti-Semitism", International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 59: 199-208.
1980. The Oceanic Feeling: The Origins of Religious Sentiment in Ancient India. (Table of contents)
1981. The Peacock's Egg: Love Poems from Ancient India, W. S. Merwin and J. Moussaieff Masson, eds. ISBN 0-86547-059-6
1984. The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory. Farrar Straus & Giroux. ISBN 0-374-10642-8
1984. "Freud and the Seduction Theory A challenge to the foundations of psychoanalysis," The Atlantic Monthly, February 1984.
1985 (editor). The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess, 1887-1904. ISBN 0-674-15420-7
1986. A Dark Science: Women, Sexuality and Psychiatry in the Nineteenth Century. ISBN 0-374-13501-0, last edition 1988
1988. Against Therapy: Emotional Tyranny and the Myth of Psychological Healing. ISBN 0-689-11929-1
1990. Final Analysis: The Making and Unmaking of A Psychoanalyst. Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-201-52368-X, new edition 2003
1993. My Father's Guru: A Journey Through Spirituality and Disillusion, Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-201-56778-4
Dogs Never Lie About Love: Reflections on the Emotional World of Dogs.
1995. When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Life of Animals.
The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals.
The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats: A Journey Into the Feline Heart. ISBN 0345448820
The Cat Who Came in from the Cold. Wheeler. ISBN 1587249146
The Emperors Embrace Reflections on Animal Families and Fatherhood.
The Evolution of Fatherhood: A Celebration of Animal and Human Families.
Raising the Peaceable Kingdom: What Animals Can Teach Us about the Social Origins of Tolerance and Friendship.
Lost Prince : The Unsolved Mystery of Kaspar Hauser. [14]
Sex and Yoga: Psychoanalysis and the Indian Religious Experience in Vishnu on Freud's Desk: A Reader in Psychoanalysis and Hinduism, T.G. Vaidyanathan & Jeffrey J. Kripal (editors): , Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195658353, Paperback (Edition: 2003)[15]
Slipping into Paradise: Why I live in New Zealand. ISBN 0-345-46634-9
2006. Altruistic Armadillos - Zen-Like Zebras: A Menagerie of 100 Favorite Animals. ISBN 978-0-345-47881-8 (0-345-47881-9)
See Masson's praise of the book by Luna Tarlo, the mother of Andrew Cohen.
1995, "A Note on U.G. Krishnamurti."

[edit] Reviews of his books
The Original Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess 1887-1904: By William McGrath.
Against Therapy:
By Jeanne Stubbs.
By Wray Herbert.
Final Analysis: By Michael Sacks.
Breaking Away From the Cult: By Carol Tavris.

[edit] References
^ "Did Freud's Isolation Lead Him to Reverse Theory on Neurosis?" by Ralph Blumenthal, New York Times, August 25, 1981
^ PSYCHOLOGIE HEUTE, April 1987, P.21, 22: "Im Gegensatz zu manchen Interpreten, die, wie zum Beispiel Marianne Krüll, Marie Balmary oder Jeffrey Masson, Freuds Abkehr von der Wahrheit als Folge seiner Familiengeschichte deuten, sehe ich diesen Schritt als Folge und Ausdruck unserer jahrtausendealten kinderfeindlichen Tradition, in der wir auch heute noch leben. Die Ergebnisse der oben genannten historischen Forscher können trotzdem korrekt sein, aber ich meine, daß es Freud trotz der persönlichen Familiengeschichte möglich gewesen wäre, seiner Entdeckung treu zu bleiben, wenn die Gesellschaft als Ganzes nicht so kinderfeindlich gewesen wäre, wenn schon damals andere, freiere Erziehungsmuster denkbar gewesen wären. Doch zur Zeit Freuds war es noch absolut unmöglich, die Unschuld der Eltern in Frage zu stellen." Alice Miller in interview entitled Wie Psychotherapien das Kind verraten
^ "Freud Archives Research Chief Removed in Dispute Over Yale Talk" by Ralph Blumenthal, New York Times November 9, 1981.
^ Masson, Jeffrey (1992). The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory. New York: Harper Perennial. xxxv. ISBN 0-06-097457-5.
^ David Margolick (1994-11-03). "Psychoanalyst Loses Libel Suit Against a New Yorker Reporter". The New York Times.
^ SMH article October 6, 2007
^ History of La Salpêtrière
^ Masson, J., 1990. Final Analysis: The Making and Unmaking of a Psychoanalyst. Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-201-52368-X.
^ Powells.com Interviews - Jeffrey Masson
^ Masson, J., "A Conversation with a Great Ordinary Kiwi: Sir Edmund Hillary," chpt. 7 in Slipping into Paradise.
^ [1]
^ [2]
^ [3]
^ Review
^ Table of Contents

[edit] Further reading
Kurt R. Eissler, 2001. Freud and the seduction theory: A brief love affair, New York: International Universities Press.
Janet Malcolm, 2002. In the Freud Archives, New York Review of Books. ISBN 159017027X
Sthitaprajna (Perfect Yogi) - Part 2
Luna Tarlo, 1997. The Mother of God. Plover Press. ISBN 9781570270437

[edit] External links
From Jeffrey Masson's Website

Masson's website.
About Jeff (with new Photo of Jeffrey and his family)
Photo
Articles

"Scholars seek the hidden Freud in newly emerging letters." The first of two NYT articles by Ralph Blumenthal, published August 18, 1981.
"Till Press Do Us Part: The Trial of Janet Malcolm and Jeffrey Masson."
Interviews

Transcript of an interview: Jeffrey Masson talking with Kirsten Garrett about Sigmund Freud and Emma Eckstein/ first broadcast on The Science Show in 1986, second broadcast 3 June 2006 presented by Robyn Williams
[4] A conversation about the lives of animals with Susan McCarthy and Jeffrey Moussaieff Mason on Jun 30, 1995, Duration 60 min (Audio)
"Walking on the Beach with Jeffrey Masson's Cats," November 14, 2002
"Conversation between Masson and Richard Fidler. Related Audio, December 14, 2007.
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Moussaieff_Masson"


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