Seduction Theory Research Articles

Dora's hysteria and the maturation of Sigmund Freud's transference theory: a new historical interpretation.

The emergence of Freud's 1905 revision and elaboration of transference theory is situated within the context of his emerging understanding of neurosogenesis. Immediately after the seduction theory lost its credibility in the fall of 1897, Freud maintained a traumatic model for hysteria and increasingly hypothesized that repressed childhood masturbation was fundamental to the creation of hysteria. Following this interest in masturbation, Freud--influenced in part by Havelock Ellis's concept of autoerotism--put forth his first post-seduction theory model of neurosogenesis in December 1899. In this model two different developmental stages of psychosexual object relatedness-the "autoerotic" and the "alloerotic"--determined and differentiated later psychoneurotic symptomatology. This etiological schema organized the next psychopathological writing Freud did, his "Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria," in which Ida Bauer's hysteria was seen as due to oral zone autoerotic overstimulation and, later, to her object-directed genital masturbation. Freud in a postscript reasoned that in the analytic situation the production of neurotic symptoms ceases and is replaced by the creation of transferences. Hence it is argued that Freud, following his new two-tiered understanding of neurosis, expanded his formal description of transference by creating two analogous forms of transference, the "reprint" and the "revised edition."

Multiple identities & false memories: a sociocognitive perspective

Preface - John F. Chaves and Bill Jones About the Author Introduction I. The Use of Hypnosis as a Therapeutic Tool Hypnosis: Mythology Versus Reality High Hypnotizability and Dramatic Behaviors Hypnotic Amnesia, Posthypnotic Response, and Brainwashing II. Creating False Memories Distortions of Memory The Seduction Theory: Old and New Versions Child Sexual Abuse and the Fate of Abuse Memories Hypnosis, Age Regression, and Memory Complex False Memories, Body Memories, and Hypnosis UFO Abduction: An Example of Complex False Memory The Experimental Creation of Multiplicity III. Multiple Identities in Other Cultures and Times Cross-Cultural Studies of Spirit Possession Historical Manifestations of Demonic Possession The Social Functions of Possession From Possession to Dual Consciousness From Dual Consciousness to Multiple Personality The History of Dissociation IV. The Theory of Multiple Personality Disorder Multiple Personality Disorder and Social Learning Correlates of Multiple Personality Disorder Child Abuse and Multiple Personality Disorder Multiple Personality Disorder, Recovered Memories, and Sociopolitical Considerations V. Conclusion Final Thoughts References Author Index Subject Index

Trauma, Dora and the Oedipus complex1

SUMMARY This paper discusses the thesis that traumatic events in childhood (especially sexual abuse) tend to lead to the destruction of the normal oedipal-phase changes because the ordinary developmental fantasies are inhibited. Freud's fascination with the oedipal story is outlined, and the case of ‘Dora’ is used as a well-known example to demonstrate some of the difficulties and pitfalls for therapists working with abused patients. The ‘seduction theory’ is discussed, and Freud's reluctance to abandon it. Balint's view of the context of abuse within the close confines of the ‘traumatogenic object’ is discussed. Although we now have much more information available to us about the nature and extent of abuse, and a variety of different models which attempt to explain its genesis, it is suggested that the dilemmas that presented to Freud are still important today, perhaps particularly for the male therapist. A plea is made not to re-abuse the patient by ‘accommodating’ to the story of early trauma by labelling it as a state of confusion between fact and fantasy.

Silencing the patient: Freud, sexual abuse, and “the etiology of hysteria”

In “The Etiology of Hysteria, “ the young Sigmund Freud defended the “seduction theory,” which asserted that the sexual abuse of children was the single cause of hysteria in adults and especially adult women. This essay argues that one can attribute Freud's failure to persuade his original audience not only to their denial of sexual abuse, but also to Freud's failure to make clear how the young science of psychoanalysis could comport with traditional models of medical authority.

Attitudes toward homosexuals: A rejoinder

The differences in the positions adopted by Gallup and myself are highlighted: the developmental process underlying the origin of homosexuality is crucial, because Gallup's reason for parents reacting with hostility to homosexuals is that they will affect their children's sexual orientation. My alternative, a two-process imprinting model, involves a different developmental process, the implications of which are that cross-gender behavior in childhood, rather than seduction by adults, is important for developing homosexual orientation. Criticisms of my alternative explanation of Gallup's findings in terms of xenophobia are also addressed, but it is emphasized that Gallup's hypothesis ultimately relies on the accuracy of his seduction theory of homosexual orientation.

Neurotica: Freud and the Seduction Theory

1. Etymologically, the infant is an animal without language: infans, it does not speak. Or, if it speaks, it babbles, making up stories, speaking illogically and irrationally. How then could a child be taken as a qualified witness? How could we believe, for example, if he told us he had witnessed a crime or had been molested? But, on the other hand, how can we prove that he is not telling the truth? Old debate, quite insoluble. The child, like the idiot or the hypnotized person, is the unreliable witness par excellence; not because he always lies (if only!), but because without external corroboration, it is as impossible to prove he is telling the truth as it is to prove the contrary. And yet, as soon as he speaks, his speech must be judged. True or false? Since there is no real basis for a decision, the decision is bound to be a matter of belief and interpretation, and as such, perfectly arbitrary and unjustifiable. How many juries have thus been accused of letting criminals off the hook or, on the contrary, of condemning innocents? Some in the United States are outraged by the acquittal of the teachers at the McMartin Preschool, who were accused of sexually abusing the children put in their charge. Others, in Great Britain, are indignant about the Cleveland case, in which pediatricians and social workers took 121 children away from their parents on mere suspicion of sexual abuse. We are told that this is the sort of situation that confronted Sigmund Freud in his elaboration and abandonment of the so-called seduction theory. Having begun by believing his hysterics, who told him that they had been raped or seduced during their early infancy, he finally decided, in September of 1897, that these stories arose from the realm of fantasy, that they were part of the properly fantastic speech of the child within. Here is what he himself had to say about this in 1933:

Did Freud Misinterpret Reported Memories of Sexual Abuse as Fantasies?

While serious questions have arisen concerning the validity of Freud's seduction theory of neurosis, a related issue concerns the extent to which Freud, following the abandonment of the seduction theory, may have misinterpreted real memories of sexual abuse as imaginary. Certain theoretical statements by Freud as well as his advice to Jung concerning a 6-yr.-old patient who had accused her foster-father of sexual abuse indicate that he may have been significantly biased toward interpreting certain types of incest allegations as fantasies. Increased awareness of Freud's biases, both in his early tendency to pressure patients into believing that they were victims of abuse and in his later tendency to regard certain types of incest allegations as unreal, may contribute to a more objective approach to the diagnosis and treatment of sexual abuse in the future.

Karl Abraham, Sigmund Freud, and the fate of the seduction theory.

Even after Freud had turned his attention away from the seduction theory of neurosogenesis, his close pupil and colleague, Karl Abraham, initially sought to investigate child sexual trauma further. In two of the very first articles on child sexual molestation, Abraham proposed that sexual abuse was particularly common among neurotic and psychotic patients as a result of a "traumatophilic diathesis," a trauma-related conceptual precursor of the repetition compulsion. In their correspondence, Freud trenchantly criticized many aspects of Abraham's papers on the subject of sexual trauma, in contrast to his public endorsement of Abraham's work in this area. For largely transferential reasons that this paper attempts to elucidate, Abraham did not encourage dialogue regarding persistent questions on the seduction issue, ceased publishing on that topic, and for some time controlled his apparently deep rankle over Freud's criticisms and failure to acknowledge Abraham's contribution to the concept of the repetition compulsion. Despite their close friendship and shared intellectual enthusiasm, Freud's response to Abraham's 1907 papers, as well as Abraham's almost uniformly positive disposition toward Freud, apparently prevented Abraham from further developing his observations and ideas on seduction and also lent background to their later clash. Subsequently, there was virtually no further psychoanalytic investigation of the subject of child sexual abuse until the issue arose briefly with Ferenczi in the early 1930s, and only occasionally after that for the next fifty years. The death of Abraham, and then Ferenczi, shortly after disputes with Freud may be among the factors that had an inhibiting effect on an earlier reconsideration of the seduction theory by others. Abraham's previously unheralded concept of traumatophilia has relevance to current clinical controversy regarding constitution and sexual trauma.

Psychoanalytic theory, child sexual abuse and clinical social work

The relationship between psychoanalysis and child sexual abuse is a troubled and problematic one, dating from the birth of psychoanalysis as a theory explaining human behavior. At the outset of his career Freud began by asserting that all neuroses could be traced to childhood sexual assaults by parents or caretakers (Freud, 1896). Freud's rejection of his seduction theory created a more general and more easily accepted theory of the etiology of neuroses, but also lei~ him open to the critique by modern researchers on child sexual abuse that he thus contributed to the societal denial and minimization of sexual assaults on children. Despite the disagreements in social work over the positive or negative influence of Freudian theory (Perlman, 1957; Hellenbrand, 1972; Borenzweig, 1972; Alexander, 1972; YeUoly, 1980), obviously the theory has permeated much thinking in clinical social work practice. This paper will review the history of psychoanalytic theory in relation to child sexual abuse, looking at its cycles of relative acceptance and rejection for use in understanding sexual assaults on children. It will outline the seduction theory, which posited childhood seduction as the cause of adult neuroses. Included will be a discussion of the factors contr ibuting to the seduction theory's development and its subsequent rejection, from the perspectives of Freud's adherents and his detractors. A brief review will be made of psychoanalytic theory and t rea tment of incest, especially current literature which re-evaluates psychoanalytic methods in the light of recent empirical research establishing the extent of sexual abuse in society today. Then theories of incest developed outside the formal analytic tradition that both find a place for psychoanalytic formulations, and theories that reject psychoanalytic components

The Debate Over Recovered Memory of Sexual Abuse: A Feminist-Psychoanalytic Perspective

This paper presents a feminist-psychoanalytic analysis of the contemporary debate over the veracity of memories of sexual abuse recovered in treatment. Clinical discourse is currently divided between those who argue that recovered memories are veridical accounts of sexual trauma and those who claim that many therapists are creating memories of abuse in their patients. I present here an analysis of the debate on recovered memory and of the social dynamics underlying it, and discuss how these dynamics have shaped clinical practice. In exploring the clinical issues raised by the debate, I reassess Freud's abandonment of seduction theory and explore some of the problematic issues in separating fantasy and memory in female psychosexual development. Conflictual aspects of female development are situated in an analysis of patriarchal social relationships that continue to mediate feminine experience. I argue that the jettisoning of the concept of fantasy in much of the clinical literature on sexual abuse has contributed to a reification of memory-that is, as "true" or "false"- and a sacrifice of complexity in the clinical elaboration of women's abuse experiences. In reclaiming the concept of fantasy, I explore a range of meanings located between the imaginary and the "real" suggested by female narratives of sexual abuse.

On objects, transference, and two-person psychology: A critique of the new seduction theory.

Although object relations theory has become the dominant theoretical perspective in the psychoanalytic realm, weaknesses within the object relations perspective have not been examined sufficiently. In particular, the frequent lack of clarity as to whether a given reference to an «object» refers to an internal representation or an external figure has resulted in major problems, distortions, or misapplications in the clinical utilization of object relations theory. This lack of clarity has the effect of transferring the therapist's attention to the role of the external world at the expense of attending to the internal world and structure of the patient. This shift to the external interpersonal world has particular implications for models of transference and therapeutic intervention

On objects, transference, and two-person psychology: A critique of the new seduction theory.

On objects, transference, and two-person psychology: A critique of the new seduction theory.

On objects, transference, and two-person psychology: A critique of the new seduction theory.

On objects, transference, and two-person psychology: A critique of the new seduction theory.

The historical evolution of PTSD diagnostic criteria: from Freud to DSM-IV.

The present study examined the evolution of the diagnostic criteria from the early writings of Sigmund Freud to the current DSM-IV. Freud's original model of neurosis, known as Seduction Theory, was a post-traumatic paradigm which placed emphasis on external stressor events. In 1897, due to a confluence of factors, he shifted his paradigm to stress intrapsychic fantasy as the focus of analytic treatment for traumatic neurosis. Freud's thinking influenced both the DSM-I and II classification of stress response syndromes as transient reactive processes. However, it is evident from his lectures in 1917-1918 that he understood the interrelatedness of what today is the four diagnostic categories in the DSM-IV.

The historical evolution of PTSD diagnostic criteria: From Freud to DSM‐IV

AbstractThe present study examined the evolution of the diagnostic criteria from the early writings of Sigmund Freud to the current DSM‐IV. Freud's original model of neurosis, known as Seduction Theory, was a post‐traumatic paradigm which placed emphasis on external stressor events. In 1897, due to a confluence of factors, he shifted his paradigm to stress intrapsychic fantasy as the focus of analytic treatment for traumatic neurosis. Freud's thinking influenced both the DSM‐I and II classification of stress response syndromes as transient reactive processes. However, it is evident from his lectures in 1917–1918 that he understood the interrelatedness of what today is the four diagnostic categories in the DSM‐IV.

Did Freud mislead patients to confabulate memories of abuse?

Freud's abandonment of the seduction theory within a year of first proposing it has been the subject of considerable recent debate and speculation. Closer examination of Freud's writings, however, shows that he had often used highly suggestive procedures to elicit the memories of childhood "seductions" from his patients. Moreover, he had not considered alternative explanations for the evidence he presented when first claiming that these recovered memories of sexual abuse were real. Nevertheless, some present-day authors have argued for the validity of recovered memories by presenting much the same type of evidence that Freud once did. Research is needed to assess the extent to which recovered memories can be clearly corroborated and to establish rules for distinguishing between real and false memories of abuse.

“sexuality and death” in freud's discovery of sexual aetiology

Abstract The present study focuses on Freud's discovery of sexual aetiology in the period from his studies in Paris and Berlin (1885–86) to self-analysis (1897). The study gives a reassessment of both the link and the break between Freud's early works and the contemporary medical views and splits concerning sexual aetiology, which is relevant for the understanding of Freud's later developments. Freud's initial aversion toward sexual aetiology is investigated, and a significant connection between sexuality and death is found in the medical practice of female circumcision and castration in the treatment of hysteria. Finally, the relevance of the tabooed surgical operations is discussed in relation to a series of important moments for the birth of psychoanalysis (the collaboration with Fliess and the operation on Emma Eckstein, the Irma dream, the seduction theory and its abandonment, and the emergence in Freud of the memory of the death of little Julius as the “germ of guilt”).

The problem of real trauma and the future of psychoanalysis

Abstract Contemporary psychoanalysis emphasizes the role of “real” trauma, as it is well shown by recent sociological and theoretical developments (such as Kohut's Self psychology, object relation theory, renewed interest in Ferenczi's and Sullivan's contributions, etc.). To understand more clearly these developments, the author traces again the steps laid down by Freud in building the psychoanalytic edifice. The renewed interest in the environment, in real traumas, and in the vicissitudes of object relations could be a “paradigm change” in psychoanalysis: a return to Freud's original seduction theory. This development is seen as related to the difficulties of Freud's drive theory.

Who is overlooking whose reality? Commentary on Tabin's "Freud's shift from the seduction theory: Some overlooked reality factors".

Who is overlooking whose reality? Commentary on Tabin's "Freud's shift from the seduction theory: Some overlooked reality factors".

Who is overlooking whose reality? Commentary on Tabin's "Freud's shift from the seduction theory: Some overlooked reality factors."

Who is overlooking whose reality? Commentary on Tabin's "Freud's shift from the seduction theory: Some overlooked reality factors."