A Further Excavation of Seduction, Seduction Trauma, and the Seduction Theory

Abstract

Freud's pre-analytic concept of seduction trauma was interwoven with the emerging concepts of an unconscious pathogenic past, repression, and reconstruction. The formulation of this theory of neurosogenesis involved important current, as well as past, determinants. Freud was psychologically seduced by Fliess and unwittingly colluded in the nearly fatal surgery Fliess performed on Emma Eckstein. The formulation and subsequent repudiation of the seduction theory approximated the period from the traumatic experience of Freud with his patient Emma Eckstein to her apparent recovery. Freud's seduction theory, with its focus on childhood sexual abuse, simultaneously defended against both aggression and the current traumatic situation. Defenses against aggression were intensified in an atmosphere of virulent anti-Semitism. The seduction theory is relevant to contemporary issues concerning psychic trauma, psychic reality and objective reality, memory, and reconstruction.