Freud's Seduction Research Articles

Sexual Abuse in Childhood and Freud's Seduction Theory

Sexual Abuse in Childhood and Freud's Seduction Theory

Sexual abuse in childhood and Freud's seduction theory

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article ArticleNo AccessDr. Smith RepliesROBERT SCOTT SMITHROBERT SCOTT SMITHSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:1 Apr 2006https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.146.8.1082AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail "Dr. Smith Replies." American Journal of Psychiatry, 146(8), p. 1082 Access content To read the fulltext, please use one of the options below to sign in or purchase access. Personal login Institutional Login Sign in via OpenAthens Purchase Save for later Item saved, go to cart PPV Articles - American Journal of Psychiatry $35.00 Add to cart PPV Articles - American Journal of Psychiatry Checkout Please login/register if you wish to pair your device and check access availability. Not a subscriber? Subscribe Now / Learn More PsychiatryOnline subscription options offer access to the DSM-5 library, books, journals, CME, and patient resources. This all-in-one virtual library provides psychiatrists and mental health professionals with key resources for diagnosis, treatment, research, and professional development. Need more help? PsychiatryOnline Customer Service may be reached by emailing [email protected] or by calling 800-368-5777 (in the U.S.) or 703-907-7322 (outside the U.S.). FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited byAggressive Behavior, Vol. 15, No. 6 Volume 146Issue 8 August 1989Pages 1082-1082 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 April 2006 Published in print 1 August 1989

The fate of the sexually abused child

This article emphasizes the importance of understanding the specific meaning of sexual abuse to the particular child in his/her particular developmental stage. A critique of the research is presented, along with discussion of the psychodynamic impact of sexual abuse on the developing ego of the child. The primary means of adaptation following the trauma are (1) identification with the aggressor and (2) the repetition compulsion. It is also suggested that Freud's seduction theory can coexist with his later fantasy theory. Two case vignettes are presented to highlight the theoretical discussion.

Feminism and the Seductiveness of the ‘Real Event’

Some ten or fifteen years ago, when feminists began thinking seriously about psychoanalysis, the most common expression of doubt was: but isn't Freud culturally specific? Weren't the illness and disturbance he described true for the period, but times have changed? Today we have the appearance of a reversal: now that the extent of child sexual abuse is increasingly recognized, some people are asking the other side of the question: if Freud was so mistaken about the reality of the 'real event', does psychoanalysis have any credibility at all? In one sense nothing has changed: there will probably always be rational and irrational forms of ambivalence, not to say scepticism, about the validity of Freud's theory of the mind and its motives. However, in this article I want to look at the implications for psychoanalysis, and the varieties of feminist response to psychoanalysis, of these specifically new terms of discussion. For there is no doubt that the current, unprecedented concern with the reality of child abuse must lead one to look again at the methodological implications of Freud's work during the period which resulted in his writing, of the women patients who spoke of having been seduced as girls by their fathers, 'I no longer believe in my neurotica' (Freud to Wilhelm Fliess, 21 September 1897, quoted in Clark 1980: 161). There has always been a debate inside psychoanalysis about the status of 'real' and 'fantasy', but nothing compares, for events in the public domain, with the recent furore over Freud's seduction theory, and I'll begin by sketching the facts of the Malcolm-Masson controversy. In December 1983 the New Yorker ran a two-part article by Janet Malcolm, author of Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession. 'Trouble in the Archives' went over, in Malcolm's elegant and intelligent way, a sequence of events between 1974 and 1981 with three main protagonists: Kurt Eissler, a senior New York analyst and secretary of the Sigmund Freud Archives, established in the 1950s to secure a collection

Freud on Sexual Trauma: An Historical Review of Seduction and Betrayal

An historical review of the development and rejection of Freud's seduction theory is presented. Questions are raised regarding the relationship of self-analysis to Freud's repudiation.

MMPI correlates of clinical women who report early sexual abuse.

It was predicted from Freud's seduction theory that women who experienced sexual assault early in life would be identifiable by the MMPI. Twenty-six of 51 women treated at a psychotherapy clinic during a 2-year period reported experiencing sexual abuse as a child (RA); 25 made no such claim (NRA). Age, income level, years of formal education, marital status, and k-corrected scores of the MMPI were submitted to a stepwise multivariate discriminant analysis. It was found that the HY, MF, HS, and PD scales constituted a linear function that correctly classified 72.55% of the subjects (Wilkes Lambda = .670785, df 4, p = .0009). These scales correctly identified 73.1% of the RA and 72.0% of the NRA clients.