Fact and Fantasy in the Seduction Theory

A Historical Review

Dados Bibliográficos

ID20258282
AutoresJean G Schimek (Department of Psychology New York University 6 Washington Place New York, NY 10003, autor correspondente)
Ano1987
Volume35
Fascículo4
Páginas937-965
Data de publicação1987-08-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0003-0651 • E-ISSN: 1941-2460
EditoraSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/000306518703500407
PMID3320164
OpenAlexW2033719589
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas38
Referências citadas5

This article surveys Freud's various versions of the seduction theory, from 1896 to 1933. It is concluded that the seduction theory had never been based on the patients' direct statements and conscious recall of seduction by the father in early childhood—unlike what Freud was to stale much later (1933). This early seduction was mostly reconstructed by Freud from the patient's verbal material and behavior in treatment (including memories of sexual experiences from later childhood) which he interpreted as disguised and incomplete “reproductions” and reenactments of the original seduction trauma. Further, the external trauma urns never meant to account by itself for the later neurotic symptoms. The “delayed action” of its unconscious memory, producing the repression of an event from the lime of puberty, was a necessary part of the process. Thus internal psychic transformations and conflicts, anticipating Freud's later emphasis on fantasy and psychic reality, were already an intrinsic part of the seduction etiology of 1896. It is also noted that the father played no central role in the original theory as presented in 1896. It is only in the letters to Fliess that the father emerged us the prime seducer. The implications of this clarification of the seduction theory for the understanding of the changes and continuity in the development of Freud's theories are highlighted; their relevance to ongoing issues in psychoanalysis about the role of external trauma, fantasy, and reconstruction are briefly examined

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