Editing Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (section)

== Views on Freud's seduction theory ==
In 1970, Masson began studying to become a psychoanalyst at the Toronto Psychoanalytic Institute, completing a full clinical training course in 1978. His training analyst was Irvine Schiffer, a well-known Toronto analyst and author of books on the unconscious aspects of charisma and time. In 1990 Masson published an autobiographical book in which he accused Schiffer of cursing, being constantly late for sessions, and intimidating Masson when the latter complained about this issue.<ref name="Final Analysis">{{cite book |last=Masson |first=Jeffrey |year=1990 |title=Final Analysis: The Making and Unmaking of a Psychoanalyst |publisher=Addison-Wesley |isbn=0-201-52368-X}}</ref> Schiffer denied it and debated Masson on the Canadian television program ''[[The Fifth Estate (TV)|The Fifth Estate]]''.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=61MAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA40 | title=Love is Strange | work=[[New York (magazine)|New York]] | date=March 22, 1993 | access-date=November 14, 2012 | author=Smith, Dinitia}}</ref>

During this time, Masson 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 deaths. Masson learned [[German language|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1980 Masson was appointed Projects Director of the Freud Archives, with full access to Freud's correspondence and other unpublished papers.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, after a hostile response from the renowned sex-pathologist [[Richard von Krafft-Ebing]] and the rest of the Vienna Psychiatric Society in 1896 — "an icy reception from the jackasses," was the way Freud described it later to Fliess.<ref>[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9A0CEFDA123BF936A1575BC0A967948260 "Did Freud's Isolation Lead Him to Reverse Theory on Neurosis?"] by Ralph Blumenthal, ''[[The New York Times]]'', August 25, 1981</ref>

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 (psychologist)|Alice Miller]]<ref>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''</ref>
and [[Muriel Gardiner]] ("While striving not to take sides," Gardiner said, "I consider him a good and energetic worker and a worthwhile scholar").<ref>[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9400E3DA1E39F93AA35752C1A967948260 "Freud Archives Research Chief Removed in Dispute Over Yale Talk"] by Ralph Blumenthal, ''The New York Times'' November 9, 1981.</ref>

Masson later wrote several books critical of psychoanalysis, including ''[[The Assault on Truth|The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory]]''. In the introduction to ''The Assault on Truth'', Masson challenged his critics to address his arguments: "My pessimistic conclusions may possibly be wrong. The documents may in fact allow a very different reading."<ref>{{cite book |first=Jeffrey |last=Masson |year=1992 |title=The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory |publisher=Harper Perennial |location=New York |isbn= 0-06-097457-5 |pages= xxxv |no-pp=true}}</ref> [[Janet Malcolm]] interviewed Masson at length when writing her long ''[[The New Yorker|New Yorker]]'' article on this controversy, which she later expanded into ''[[In the Freud Archives]]'', a book that also dealt with Eissler and with [[Peter Swales (historian)|Peter Swales]].

In 1984 Masson sued ''The New Yorker,'' Janet Malcolm and the publisher Alfred A. Knopf for [[defamation]], claiming that Malcolm had misquoted him. The ensuing trial drew considerable attention.<ref>{{Cite news | title = Psychoanalyst Loses Libel Suit Against a New Yorker Reporter | work = The New York Times | date = 1994-11-03 | author = David Margolick}}</ref> The U.S. district court ruled against Masson. In 1989 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco upheld the lower court's decision. “The Court of Appeals affirmed [...] that Malcolm had deliberately altered each quotation not found on the tape recordings, but nevertheless held that petitioner failed to raise a jury question of actual malice.” <ref>{{Cite web|title=Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, Inc. (89-1799), 501 U.S. 496 (1991)|url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/89-1799.ZO.html|publisher=Supreme Court/Cornell University Law School|year=1991|access-date=Oct 19, 2015}}</ref> Masson petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court, which reversed the Court of Appeals decision and sent the case back to trial by jury. The decade-long ten-million-dollar federal lawsuit came to a close in 1994 when the jury and the court again ruled in ''The New Yorker''‘s favor.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.smh.com.au/news/books/the-journalist-and-the-biographer/2007/10/04/1191091267930.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2 |title=SMH article October 6, 2007 |publisher=Smh.com.au |date=2007-10-06 |access-date=2012-01-05}}</ref> Subsequent to the case, Janet Malcolm claimed to have found her handwritten notes indicating that Masson had lied in relation to the remaining disputed quotations, as he had lied in relation to quotations where there were recordings.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Stout|first=David|date=1995-08-30|title=Malcolm's Lost Notes And a Child at Play|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/30/arts/malcolm-s-lost-notes-and-a-child-at-play.html|access-date=2020-08-12|issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/25/opinion/abroad-at-home-stranger-than-fiction.html?searchResultPosition=1 Lewis, Anthony, "Abroad at Home; Stranger Than Fiction," ''The New York Times'', August 26, 1995]</ref>

Meanwhile, in 1985, Masson edited and translated Freud's complete correspondence with [[Wilhelm Fliess]] after having convinced Anna Freud to make it available in full. He also looked up the original places and documents in La [[Salpêtrière]] Hospital in Paris,<ref>[http://www.paris.org/Kiosque/sep98/la.salpetriere.html History of La Salpêtrière] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110103105500/http://www.paris.org/Kiosque/sep98/la.salpetriere.html |date=January 3, 2011 }}</ref> where Freud had studied with [[Jean-Martin Charcot|Charcot]]. Masson writes that the scientific community has been largely silent about his views, and that he suffered personal attacks once he deviated from the traditional views on the seduction theory and the history of psychoanalysis.<ref name="Final Analysis" /> Both the traditional view and Masson's case against it are built on the account that Freud's seduction theory patients reported having been sexually abused in early childhood; several Freud scholars have disputed this account.<ref>Schimek, J. G. (1987). Fact and Fantasy in the Seduction Theory: a Historical Review. ''Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association'', xxxv: 937-65; Israëls, H. and Schatzman, M. (1993) The Seduction Theory. ''History of Psychiatry'', iv: 23-59; Esterson, A. (1998). [http://human-nature.com/esterson/synopsis.html Jeffrey Masson and Freud’s seduction theory: a new fable based on old myths]. ''History of the Human Sciences'', 11 (1), pp. 1-21; Esterson, A. (2001). The mythologizing of psychoanalytic history: deception and self deception in Freud's accounts of the seduction theory episode. ''History of Psychiatry'', Vol. 12 (3), pp. 329-352; Eissler, K. R. (2001) ''Freud and the Seduction Theory: A Brief Love Affair.'' International Universities Press, pp. 107-117.</ref>