Editing Psychoanalysis (section)

====The abuse thesis====
In 1896, Freud also published his [[Freud's seduction theory|''seduction theory'']], in which he assumed as certain that he had uncovered repressed memories of incidents of sexual abuse in each of his previous patients. This type of [[Sexual arousal|sexual excitations]] of the child would therefore be the prerequisite for the later development of [[hysteria|hysterical]] and other kinds of neurotic symptoms.<ref name="Freud 1896">Freud, Sigmund. 1953 [1896]. "[[The Aetiology of Hysteria]]." Pp. 191–221 in ''[[The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud|The Standard Edition]]'' 3, edited by [[James Strachey|J. Strachey]]. London: [[Hogarth Press]]. [http://courses.washington.edu/freudlit/Hysteria.Notes.html Lay summary] via [[University of Washington]].</ref> Later the same year, Freud noticed a contradiction to his abuse thesis; he reports of patients who expressed their "emphatic disbelief" in this respect: that they "had no feeling of remembering the [[Infantile sexuality|infantile sexual]] scenes".<ref name="Freud 1896" />{{Rp|204}} In the course of his further research, Freud began to doubt his thesis that such abuse should be almost omnipresent in our society.

Initially, he expressed his suspicion of having made a mistake in private to his friend and colleague [[Wilhelm Fliess]] in 1898; but it took another 8 years before he had clarified the obscure connections sufficiently to publicly revoke his thesis, stating the reasons.<ref name="Freud 1906">Freud, Sigmund. 1953 [1906]. "My Views on the Part Played by Sexuality in the Aetiology of the Neuroses." Pp. 269–79 in ''[[The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud|The Standard Edition]]'' 7, edited by [[James Strachey|J. Strachey]]. London: [[Hogarth Press]].</ref> (Freud's final position on the origin of neurosis in general is summarized in his late work ''[[Civilization and Its Discontents|The Discomfort in Culture]]''. According to this, the causes do not lie in general sexual abuse of children, but in the way in which each generation educates the next to adopt the rules of coexistence known as morality. See also ''[[The Future of an Illusion]]''.)