Is The Widespread Diagnosis Of BPD The New Freudian Coverup?
It’s easier to blame the one with the emotional trauma symptoms than tackle societal symptoms of rape culture head-on
When you think of Freud, what’s the first thing you think of? Is it that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, or that he thought all boys wanted to kill their fathers so they could marry their mothers?
If you’ve ever read about the history of trauma in Western society, there’s a good chance it’s neither of those. Instead, when you hear Sigmund Freud’s name, you may think of the apparent cover-up of sexual abuse.
Freud and Hysteria
First discussed by 1970s Social Worker Florence Rush, the Freudian Coverup is the theory that due to a personal discomfort with hearing about sexual abuse his patients’ suffered, he chose to deny a significant chunk of his work.
As the creator of Psychoanalysis, Freud was an important figure in the exploration of ‘hysteria’, the diagnosis given — primarily to women — who exhibited excessive emotional symptoms.
Sound familiar? He wasn’t the first to closely investigate hysteria as a medical diagnosis, but he was certainly one of the first to come close to breaking open the primary reason…
