Editing Sigmund Freud Archives

{{short description|Collection of documents related to the Austrian psychotherapist}}

The '''Sigmund Freud Archives''' mainly consist of a trove of documents housed at the US [[Library of Congress]]<ref>[https://www.loc.gov/collections/sigmund-freud-papers/about-this-collection/ Sigmund Freud Collection in the Library of Congress]</ref><ref name="Kurt Eissler">[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0CEFDB143DF933A15751C0A96F958260 Kurt Eissler, 90, Director of Sigmund Freud Archives] by Sarah Boxer, ''The New York Times'', February 20, 1999.</ref> and in the former residence of [[Sigmund Freud]] during the last year of his life, at 20 [[Maresfield Gardens]] in northwest [[London, England|London]]. The archive comprises Freud's tapes, letters and papers.<ref name="Kurt Eissler" /> It was founded in 1951 by [[Kurt R. Eissler]] among others, and received contributions from [[Anna Freud]].<ref name="Kurt Eissler" />

It was at the center of a complicated scandal, described by [[Janet Malcolm]] in her book ''In the Freud Archives'' and by [[Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson|Jeffrey Masson]] in his book ''Final Analysis.''

==History==

=== Early history ===
The Archives were founded by [[Kurt R. Eissler]] in 1951, together with a group of people who knew Freud personally, including [[Heinz Hartmann]], [[Ernst Kris]], [[Bertram Lewin]] and [[Hermann Nunberg]].<ref name="Kurt Eissler" /> It was directed by Eissler for decades after its founding. Eissler prevented many well-meaning scholars from seeing many Freud documents, claiming confidentiality, even when their donors had not requested nor demanded confidentiality and even when no potential victims of the revelation of those documents existed.{{sfn|Swales|1985}} By the 1980s, Eissler, with the help of [[Anna Freud]], had expanded the collection to include thousands of items.<ref name="Kurt Eissler" />

=== Masson controversy ===
{{Further information|Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson#Views on Freud's seduction theory}}
Eissler was introduced to Masson in 1974.<ref name="Kurt Eissler" /> Masson was appointed secretary, and Eissler intended for Masson to succeed him as director,<ref name="Kurt Eissler" /> which he did in 1980. Being an officer of the Archives, Masson had administrative access to all its documents, and he was therefore allowed to see anything he wanted breaking the seal whenever necessary.{{Citation needed|date=August 2023}}

In 1981, Masson published a paper wherein he claimed that [[Freud's seduction theory#Abandonment|Freud's abandonment of his seduction theory]] had taken place for reasons not related to the scientific merit of the theory,<ref name="Kurt Eissler" /> namely that Freud believed that granting the truth of his female patients' claims that they had been sexually abused would risk the reputation of the emerging [[Psychoanalysis|psychoanalytic]] method.<ref>''Assault on Truth''</ref>{{Page needed|date=August 2023}} Masson said that "Freud began a trend away from the real world that, it seems to me, has come to a dead halt in the present-day sterility of psychoanalysis throughout the world."<ref name="Kurt Eissler" />

Eissler was deeply shocked ("Just today [[Masud Khan]] called me from London and asked me to dismiss you from the Archives. The board members, all of them, or at least most of them, are asking for the same."<ref>Eissler to Masson, p. 194 of ''Final Analysis''</ref>), and Masson was subsequently dismissed from his job at the Archives, whereupon followed three lawsuits and a well-publicized scandal.<ref name="Kurt Eissler" /><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>

=== Recent history ===
Harold P. Blum succeeded Masson and Eissler as Executive Director. He was succeeded by Louis Rose, who is the current director {{As of|2025|lc=y}}.<ref>[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/bio/blum.html Photo]</ref><ref name="Sigmund Freud Archives">[http://www.freudarchives.org/ Sigmund Freud Archives]</ref> The other current officers are Jennifer Stuart as President, Nellie L. Thompson as Secretary, and W. Craig Tomlinson as Treasurer.<ref name="Sigmund Freud Archives" />

==Literature==
*Janet Malcolm: ''In the Freud Archives'', New York, Knopf, 1984, {{ISBN|0-394-53869-2}}. Paperback edition, New York, Vintage Books, 1985, {{ISBN|0-394-72922-6}}. British edition, London, Papermac, 1997, {{ISBN|0-333-64471-9}}. New edition, with an afterword by the author, New York, New York Review Books, 2002, {{ISBN|1-59017-027-X}}.
* Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson: ''[[The Assault on Truth|The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory]]''. New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1984, {{ISBN|0-374-10642-8}}.
*Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson: ''Final Analysis: The Making and Unmaking of a Psychoanalyst.'' Reading, Massachusetts, Addison-Wesley, 1990, {{ISBN|0-201-52368-X}}. Paperback edition, New York, Ballantine Books, 2003, {{ISBN|0-345-45278-X}}, GTIN 9780345452788.
*{{cite web |last1=Swales |first1=Peter J.|author-link=Peter Swales (historian) |title=The Freud Archives |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1985/10/24/the-freud-archives/ |website=The New York Review of Books |access-date=28 April 2025 |language=en |date=24 October 1985}}

==See also==
*[[Girindrasekhar Bose]]
<!--*[[Kurt Eissler]] -->
*[[Janet Malcolm]]
*[[Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson]]
*[[Peter Swales (historian)]]
*[[Freud's seduction theory]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
* [http://www.freudarchives.org/ Website of the Sigmund Freud Archives, Inc.]
* [http://www.freud.org.uk/ Freud Museum London]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070210165430/http://www.britac.ac.uk/portal/resource.asp?ResourceID=481  Sigmund Freud and the Freud Archives] The British Academy PORTAL
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20051225115507/http://users.rcn.com/brill/sfa_loc.html The Sigmund Freud archive and the Freud exhibit at the Library of Congress]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20050915044454/http://users.rcn.com/brill/swales.html Letter to the Library of Congress concerning the SFA] dated July 31, 1995
'''Research'''
*[http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/faidfrquery/r?faid/faidfr:@field(SOURCE+@band(freud+sigmund+48,000)) Library of Congress]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20080607174435/http://www.freud.org.uk/fmrese.htm Archive Catalogue of the Freud Museum London]

{{Sigmund Freud}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Psychoanalytic works by writer|Freud]]
[[Category:Library of Congress]]
[[Category:Sigmund Freud]]