Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson Quotes
- <cite>But Eissler also knew how the very people making the complaints and demanding my dismissal for what was, after all, a disagreement about the history of psychoanalysis, were guilty of extraordinary breaches of ethical conduct. (page 194) - View Quote Details on <cite>But Eissler also knew how the very people making the…
- <cite>”Every day I get many calls, from all over the world about how awful you are. How awful this article is. How bad it all is for psychoanalysis (quoting Eissler, page 193). - View Quote Details on <cite>”Every day I get many calls, from all over the…
- <cite>Ferenczi was considered paranoid for believing his women patients; the men’s confessions were not even discussed. Ernest Jones, the powerful English analyst who had been Ferenczi’s analysand, now took up the cudgel against him in deadly seriousness. Jones let it be known after Ferenczi’s death in 1933 (he died a few months after the quarrel with Freud) that he was really a homicidal maniac. While I was in London working in the Jones archives I discovered what this really meant: Jones believed that to disagree with Freud (the father) was tantamount to patricide (father murder). And so, because Ferenczi believed that children were sexually abused and Freud did not, Ferenczi was branded by Jones as a homicidal maniac, and this piece of scurrilous interpretation stuck (page 152). - View Quote Details on <cite>Ferenczi was considered paranoid for believing his women patients; the…
- <cite>Because I was so eager to believe I was being helped by a talented, ethical, benevolent, and intelligent man, I sought evidence for this wherever I could. Anything less than this was too dreadful to contemplate (page 40). - View Quote Details on <cite>Because I was so eager to believe I was being…
- I called Anna Freud in London to tell her what was about to happen. It was a strange, honest conversation. - View Quote Details on I called Anna Freud in London to tell her what…
- <cite>Somewhat to my surprise, I was accepted for membership in the society [the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Society]. I was looking forward to giving my inaugural paper, “The Navel of Neurosis: Trauma, Memory and Denial,” the one I had written with my wife, Terri, and which Schiffer [Masson's analyst] had claimed as his (page 136). - View Quote Details on <cite>Somewhat to my surprise, I was accepted for membership in…
- I still yearned then, and probably even more so earlier, for a strong, masculine person on whom I could pattern myself. Somebody I could admire, and imitate, and become close to and learn from. I had sought this, always, in my teachers, and my search had always ended in disappointment. I was attracted emotionally to a position that I could only despise intellectually. - View Quote Details on I still yearned then, and probably even more so earlier,…
- <cite>In my experience, psychoanalysis demanded loyalty that could not be questioned, the blind acceptance of unexamined “wisdom”. It is characteristic of religious orders to seek obedience without scepticism, but it spells the death of intellectual enquiry. All variants of “because I say so,” or because the Koran says so, or the Bible says so, or the Upanishads say so, or Freud says so, or Marx says so, are simply different means of stifling intellectual dissent. In the end they cannot satisfy the inquisitive mind or still the doubts that naturally arise when such a mind is confronted with authoritative statements about human behavior. (pages 209, 210) - View Quote Details on <cite>In my experience, psychoanalysis demanded loyalty that could not be…
- <cite>After returning to Berkeley, I was called by the New York Times. They had heard about the paper and the response to it and wanted to send a reporter to Berkeley to talk to me about the issues surrounding it. Ralph Blumenthal came to Berkeley, spent a few days talking with me, left and wrote a sober and intelligent account, sketchy and somewhat popular, but basically correct. I was completely unprepared for the storm it was to provoke within psychoanalytic circles. To this day I am not entirely certain what it was in the article that so infuriated the analytic community. But there can be no doubt about the severity of the anger, even rage, directed at me. The two-part article was published in the “Science” section of the Times on two successive Tuesdays, August 14, and August 21,1981. I happened to be in England when the first part came out. Anna Freud had seen it and called me. “I am surprised at all the phone calls I have been receiving. I can’t see anything so terrible in this article.” I was relieved. (page 193) - View Quote Details on <cite>After returning to Berkeley, I was called by the New…
About Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (b. March 28, 1941 as Jeffrey Lloyd Masson/ place of birth: Chicago, Illinois ), an American residing in New Zealand, is an iconoclastic former psychoanalyst as well as the author of a number of books on a wide range of subjects. .
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