Freud abandoned his ‘seduction theory’, citing, in a letter, pressure from colleagues, fathers, men. Perhaps, we can learn from these people’s attitudes.
In 1895 and 1896, Freud, in listening to his women patients, learned that something dreadful and violent lay in their past… Freud was the first psychiatrist who believed that his patients were telling the truth…Freud announced his discovery in a paper entitled “The Etiology of Hysteria,” which he gave in April of 1896 to the Society for Psychiatry and Neurology in Vienna — his first major public address to his peers about his new sexual theories. As Freud was later to describe it, he believed that in giving this paper he would become “one of those who had, disturbed the sleep of the world.” The address presented a revolutionary view of mental illness. Its title referred to Freud’s new theory that the origin of hysteria lay in early sexual traumas, which he called “infantile sexual scenes” or “sexual intercourse” in childhood. This is what later came to be the seduction theory — namely, the belief that such early experiences were real, not fantasies, and had a damaging and lasting effect on the later lives of the children who suffered them.
[Freud’s colleague] Krafft-Ebing made the strange comment: It sounds like a scientific fairy tale.
Freud’s doubts about the frequency of the father’s guilt may be biographically interesting, but do they have any theoretical significance? Freud is right that the incidence of perversion would have to be widespread in order for the seduction theory to be true, but that possibility is conceivable once we abandon the kind of mystifying piety about “the family” that Freud never ceased to expose in other areas of human existence.
(Masson, J.M. 1984, Freud and the Seduction Theory. A Challenge to the Foundations of Psychoanalysis, The Atlantic, February, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1984/02/freud-and-the-seduction-theory/376313/)
Freud, we know, created great change in the world of psychoanalysis and treatments for mental health challenges. However, there has been great change and further knowledge and research has contributed to the professional helping professions over the hundred and twenty years since, Freud abandoned his Seduction Theory.
That Freud changed his approach, blaming the fantasies of the victims, rather than the abuses, the parents, is significant in the history of, not just psychology, but, in the history of social justice. Children, like me, were accused of ‘complicitous, seductive behaviour, adults (paedophiles) accused children of wanting sex, of wanting a man’s sexual penetrations’. In fact, I was sexually abused by my mother in a once off post-natal episode, women are seldom accused, but they are also perpetrators in a minority of cases. Tom O’Carroll, is a UK citizen who believes that children, even very young children, want sex with adults. (Purtill, C., 2015, This man is a paedophile and proud of it, Global Post, PRI online, 18 March, https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-03-18/man-pedophile-and-proud-it). I can tell that man, children, never, never, want sex. Children do not even think about sex, unless an adult exposes them to the concept, to the behaviour and to the feelings. Children are sexually immature, they cannot process intense sexual feeling, intense and vulnerable sexual behaviour or sexual thoughts, inside their minds. They cannot understand such a close and sensitive experience with another human being. Children certainly walk arm in arm, and hold hands, they might kiss each other on the cheek, (learned behaviour), but they are not familiar with the body-slap, the flesh on flesh, the pounding penis and the entry, the intrusion of another person’s body-parts inside their own personal, sacred, body spaces. Such sexual abuse is violent, cruel, exploitative and depraved.
Masson in Freud and the Seduction Theory. A Challenge to the foundations of psychoanalysis, writes:
…a seduction is an act of cruelty and violence, which wounds the child in every aspect of her being (or his, though Freud made it clear that it is usually a young girl who is the victim). Her body is not ready for the adult act of intercourse (the “seduction” is often an actual rape with life-threatening consequences), nor are her emotions prepared either for the immediate impact of the sexual passion of the adult or for her own later, inevitable feelings of guilt, anxiety, and fear. (1984, The Atlantic, February, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1984/02/freud-and-the-seduction-theory/376313/)
Therapists know if children have been exposed to adult sexual behaviour, because that child, unlike others who are innocent of adult sexual exposure, will play sexual games with their dolls and toys. Those children, exposed to adult sexual acts, will be sexually explicit, having learned that behaviour from their supposedly, protective and caring adults, their role models.
Freud’s brave exposure, in a scientific academic institution, of his new discovery, ‘parents are abusers’, at first thrilled him, causing him to imagine himself as “one of those who had, disturbed the sleep of the world.” Masson, quoted above, wrote, ‘Freud’s announcement of his new discoveries in the 1896 address on the Etiology of Hysteria met with no reasoned refutation or scientific discussion, only disgust and disavowal. The idea of sexual violence in the family was so emotionally charged that the only response it received was irrational distaste.’ Of course, Freud’s whole audience would have been men, few women, maybe one or two, had positions at institutions back at the turn of the last century. Those men, did not want their privileges, as parents, as fathers of innocent daughters, as fathers of dependent and vulnerable sons, stolen from them, by this ghost of a scientist, a newbie, a psychoanalyst.
Freud’s plight reverberates, in this written work, in this century, as highlighted by this author’s life experience, and her examples. Parents, do cause pain, they violate their children, and sometimes, they do it unwittingly, unconsciously. Sometimes, the Miss Havisham’s of the world may do it intentionally, a court of law may decide, if Miss Havisham’s actions were planned, schemed or spontaneous, an irrationally emotional response to her own abuse, in which case, she will receive a lesser sentence. (You will recall the character of Miss Havisham as expertly crafted by Mr Charles Dickens, in his work Great Expectations.)
Unfortunately, at this point in our social and cultural development, we are not equipped to judge people’s ‘seemingly’ unconscious behaviour. Those with intent, may be clever and hide behind their performance skills, (see Goffman reference).
My suggestions, that you become authentic, that you acknowledge your inner self, your motivations, your bias, your attitudes, beliefs and values. Knowing your inner thoughts, motivations, biases is significant, if you truly love and cherish your dependents, partners, parents, all potential connections. Since, children are not only abused by physical and sexual adult behaviours, children are also abused by adult unconscious thoughts, feelings and behaviours. My mother has abused me all my life, through childhood, teenage hood, young adult and into my adult life, she has persisted, because she had a secret, something she never wanted me to remember or to reveal to her large social connection set. Also, she has a bias, she always wanted me to be a lesser achiever than herself. She was afraid of being the lowest person in our family hierarchy, so she made it her business to disable me, forcing me into that honourable position. She tells the story of my confiding in her when I was two, that my older brother had Nell, our father’s mother, but I had Grandma, my mother’s mother. This smart assessment, at such a young age, fuelled my mother’s bias, and motivated her to act, ‘unconsciously’, against me.
As mentioned above, my mother violated me sexually, in a once off event. Perhaps she was suffering post-natal depression, I can’t judge her behaviour. I can only know the effects she had on me, as a baby, when she forced violence upon me, in a terrible act, intended to make me compliant, less demanding. Following this action, which she kept a secret from my father, she was forced to keep me from talking about the event, for ever…. I was only a baby, so she had to work hard, but hard work she did, and all my life, I have been subject to her censorship, within my mental space, her voice in my head, ‘tell me what you are doing’, ‘where are you’, ‘who are you with’, ‘what did you say’. Her voice became an instrument of terror when I finally collapsed mentally and needed support, from services, at the age of thirty.
Unconsciously, I assume, my mother has also worked on keeping me small. She made sure I had no opportunity to attend university, no opportunity to marry or have children. She wanted to maintain me as her subject, she colonised me. Was my mother aware of her motivations? Her behaviours and her power play?
Are you aware of your unconscious thoughts, feelings, behaviours? Are you aware of your ambitions for your loved ones, your partner, your children, your parents? Your thoughts may not play out in your loved one’s life pattern, but that would be because that person has considered your belief, and rejected it, chosen an alternative path. An example, I keep wishing my neighbour would move his bicycle from my patio pillar, where he’s chained it. Recently, we both stood beside the bicycle, talking, and he said, Oh, I keep forgetting to move the bike. I said, that would be great. Nothing has been done. I don’t believe he really wants to move the bike, he was just reflecting my wish, expressed psychologically, many times. We do this when conversing openly too, we copy the body language of the person we are connecting with, for instance, when talking beside his bike, my neighbour crossed his legs and I crossed mine, to show I was listening intently to his words and respecting his opinion, but it was all unintentional, just copying behaviour.
You can share and pass all aspects of yourself, pain, love, caring, hate, criticism, bias, psychologically onto your children, your siblings, your friend, it’s called transference. Our minds are open to the universe, everything can be shared and passed around, even a sore toe. You can feel my sore toe, if I share the feelings of it with you, in your mind space. The following definition of Transference, doesn’t give all the details I am providing from my lived experience. Note, however, that no one, no professional, talks about inner voices, either. They like to keep these things a mystery, in case they are used against us, or freak out the universe, various reasons, I am sure.
The classic use of the term transference comes from psychoanalysis and includes: “the redirection of feelings and desires and especially of those unconsciously retained from childhood toward a new object.” We all do this all the time. … What’s the problem with transference? Rather than connecting with the person, we’re relating to a template, which may be quite different from the flesh and blood in front of us. You’re treating Jane Doe like she’s your mother, or your grade school rival, or an idealised object of desire, when she’s actually none of the above — she’s Jane Doe. It prevents you from really connecting with Jane in a meaningful way. (Howes, R. A., 2012, Client’s Guide to transference, Psychology Today, 18 June, https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/in-therapy/201206/clients-guide-transference)
I am not a professional therapist. Definitely my mother addresses me, inside my head, as an object, daughter, you are my daughter, she comments, in a possessive, colonising speech. No, I say, I am Jenny.
Treat yourself, and you loved ones, with respect and care at all times. Connection, will open spaces within the mind, when we each listen, acknowledge feelings, conscious and unconscious, acknowledge thought, conscious and unconscious and acknowledge, behaviours, conscious and unconscious. We will all then, reach authenticity and congruence, in adulthood.