Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0022391, Sun, 12 Feb 2012 15:17:14 -0200

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Re: Nabokov and Twelve-Year-Old Girls ...
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Dear Editor and Anthony Stadlen

It's the wikipedia that deserves the reprimand that was addressed to me. The quote Anthony Stadlen selected came from the wiki, not from me, as it should be obvious from the paragraph below copied from my criticized posting:

"Wikipedia confirms part of that which I remembered concerning Jeffrey Masson (i.e., how his 'search for truth' led him to betray those who gave him full access to Freud's private papers) Excerpts: Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (born March 28, 1941 as Jeffrey Lloyd Masson in Chicago, Illinois) is an American author, residing in New Zealand. Masson is best known for his conclusions about Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis. In his book The Assault on Truth, Masson argues that Freud may have abandoned his seduction theory because he feared that granting the truth of his female patients' claims that they had been sexually abused would hinder the acceptance of his psychoanalytic methods.[...] In 1970, Masson began studying to become a psychoanalyst at the Toronto Psychoanalytic Institute, completing a full clinical training course in 1978. During this time, he befriended the psychoanalyst Kurt Eissler and became acquainted with Sigmund Freud's daughter Anna Freud. Eissler designated Masson to succeed him as Director of the Sigmund Freud Archives after his and Anna Freud's death. Masson learned German and studied the history of psychoanalysis. In 1980 Masson was appointed Projects Director of the Freud Archives, with full access to Freud's correspondence and other unpublished papers. While perusing this material, Masson concluded that Freud might have rejected the seduction theory in order to advance the cause of psychoanalysis and to maintain his own place within the psychoanalytic inner circle [...] In 1981, Masson's controversial conclusions were discussed in a series of New York Times articles by Ralph Blumenthal, to the dismay of the psychoanalytic establishment. Masson was subsequently dismissed from his position as project director of the Freud Archives. and stripped of his membership in psychoanalytic professional societies..." *

Perhaps my credentials as a psychoanalyst were the source of A.Stadlen's mistrust - because for over thrity years I worked a lecturer, teacher and training-analyst at the Brazilian society (SBPSP) that belongs to the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA), namely, the same group which entrusted J. Masson with Freud's private papers and later expelled him
I didn't want to bore the N-List with excessively specific details which seemed to be out of place in a literary milieu. This is why I restricted my commentary to what was easily available to everyone through Wikipedia.

I'm still very uneasy about the entire misunderstanding (to state it mildly).
Thank you,
Jansy Mello
..........................................................................................................

* -----Mensagem Original-----
De: Jansy
Para: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Enviada em: sexta-feira, 10 de fevereiro de 2012 18:28
Assunto: Re: [NABOKV-L] Nabokov and Twelve-Year-Old Girls ...


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----Mensagem Original-----
De: Nabokv-L
Para: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Enviada em: domingo, 12 de fevereiro de 2012 14:07
Assunto: Re: [NABOKV-L] Nabokov and Twelve-Year-Old Girls ...



EDNote: I second Anthony Stadlen's call for source-checking for posts to the list. ~SB

Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Nabokov and Twelve-Year-Old Girls ...
From: <STADLEN@aol.com>
Date: Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:09:38 -0500
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>


In a message dated 11/02/2012 12:56:20 GMT Standard Time, jansy@AETERN.US writes:
While perusing this material, Masson concluded that Freud might have rejected the seduction theory in order to advance the cause of psychoanalysis and to maintain his own place within the psychoanalytic inner circle
This is a not entirely accurate account even of Masson's inaccurate account (I write as a personal friend of Masson, but also as a Freud researcher, who -- as I have told Masson since 1985, the year after his "seduction theory" book The Assault on Truth appeared -- finds Masson's treatment of the "seduction theory" superficial). Freud began (in a letter to his friend Wilhelm Fliess) to admit doubts about his own so-called (not by him) "seduction theory" on 21 September 1897, some 17 months after he had announced it in the spring of 1896 in two papers and a lecture. At that time there was no "psychoanalytic inner circle". There was only one psychoanalyst in the world, Freud himself. He had only invented the name "psychoanalysis" in precisely the three so-called "seduction theory" papers of 1896, and there were no other practitioners of whatever "psychoanalysis" denoted. Breuer was no longer practising what he had described (in Studies on Hysteria, 1895) doing with "Anna O." from 1880-1882, and in any case Breuer never called that "psychoanalysis", although Freud on one occasion (America, 1909), did.

Would not this list's fine scholarly culture be better served if all of us checked primary sources before writing?

Anthony Stadlen


Anthony Stadlen
"Oakleigh"
2A Alexandra Avenue
GB - London N22 7XE
Tel.: +44 (0) 20 8888 6857
Email: stadlen@aol.com
Founder (in 1996) and convenor of the Inner Circle Seminars: an ethical, existential, phenomenological search for truth in psychotherapy
See "Existential Psychotherapy & Inner Circle Seminars" at http://anthonystadlen.blogspot.com/ for programme of future Inner Circle Seminars and complete archive of past seminars






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