Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

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Dr. Jeffrey Masson

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (b. March 28, 1941 as Jeffrey Lloyd Masson), an American residing in New Zealand, is the author of a number of books on a wide range of subjects, perhaps most successfully on animal rights philosophy. He is mainly known for concluding that Sigmund Freud changed his mind early in his career about the truth of the childhood sexual abuse many of his women patients alleged to have experienced. Masson argues that Freud feared that granting the truth of these reports would hinder the acceptance of the psychoanalytic methods he had pioneered. The psychoanalytic establishment rejects Masson's conclusions.

1 Life and work
2 Writings by Masson
- 2.1 Book reviews
3 Notes
4 External links
- 4.1 Interviews

[edit] Life and work

Masson was born into a comfortable American Jewish family. His parents were ardent followers of the British mystic Paul Brunton. During the 1940s and 50s, Brunton often lived in the Masson household, eventually designating Jeffrey as his heir apparent. In 1956, the Massons moved to Uruguay because Brunton believed that a third world war was imminent. At Brunton's urging, Jeffrey went to Harvard University to study Sanskrit. While at Harvard, Masson became disillusioned with Brunton. Brunton and his influence and the Masson family forms the subject of Masson's autobiographical book My Father's Guru: A Journey Through Spirituality and Disillusion.

Harvard University granted Masson a B.A. in 1964 and a Ph.D, with Honors in 1970; both degrees were in Sanskrit and Indian Studies. While doing his Ph.D., Masson also studied, supported by fellowships, at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, the University of Calcutta, and the University of Poona. He taught Sanskrit and Indian Studies at the University of Toronto, 1969-80, rising to the rank of Professor. He has also held short term appointments at Brown University, the University of California, and the University of Michigan. From 1981 to 1992, he was a Research Associate, Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies, at the University of California at Berkeley. He is currently an Honorary Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

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 became close friends with the psychoanalyst Kurt Eissler, and later became acquainted with Sigmund Freud's daughter Anna Freud. The elderly Eissler designated Masson to succeed him as Director of the Sigmund Freud Archives, one of the highest positions in psychoanalytic circles, after his and Anna Freud's death. Masson learned German, undertook a close study of the history of psychoanalysis, and in 1980 was appointed Projects Director of the Freud Archives, with full access to Freud's correspondence and other unpublished papers. While perusing this material, Masson soon concluded that Freud, in order to advance the cause of psychoanalysis and to maintain his own place within the psychoanalytic inner circle, had rejected his own seduction theory, so-called, to the effect that childhood reports of sexual abuse were real, proposing instead that many, if not most, such reports were fantasies. ^[1]

In 1981, Masson's controversial conclusions were discussed in a series of New York Times articles by Ralph Blumenthal, to the considerable dismay of the psychoanalytic establishment. Shortly thereafter, Masson was dismissed from his position as project director of the Freud Archives ^[2], and stripped of his membership in psychoanalytic professional societies. He subsequently wrote several books critical of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and psychiatry, starting with The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory. When he decided to publish his unpopular views about child sexual abuse, it was Alice Miller who first came to his aid, encouraging him to stand up against the combined might of the psychoanalytic establishment. Most persons professionally involved with psychoanalysis dispute Masson's allegation that Freud suppressed evidence that many of his patients had been sexually abused as children. Masson has countered that Freud did not grasp the nature of psychological trauma.

Janet Malcolm interviewed Masson at length when writing her long New Yorker article on this controversy. Masson unsuccessfully sued the New Yorker for defamation, claiming that Malcolm had misquoted him; the ensuing trial drew considerable attention.

In recent years, Masson has written several books on the emotional life of animals, one of which, When Elephants Weep, has been translated into twenty languages. He was once engaged to the feminist legal scholar Catharine A. MacKinnon, who wrote the preface to A Dark Science. He is married to Leila Siller, a pediatrician; they have two children. He has a daughter by a previous marriage.

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Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

[edit] Writings by Masson

Masson bibliography.

1974. "India and the Unconscious: Erik Erikson on Gandhi," International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 55: 519-26
1980. The Oceanic Feeling: The Origins of Religious Sentiment in Ancient India.
1981. The Peacock's Egg: Love Poems from Ancient India, W. S. Merwin and J. Moussaieff Masson, eds. ISBN 0-86547-059-6
1984. The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory. Farrar Straus & Giroux. ISBN 0-374-10642-8
1985. The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess, 1887-1904, (editor) ISBN 0-674-15420-7
A Dark Science: Women, Sexuality and Psychiatry in the Nineteenth Century. ISBN 0-374-13501-0
1988. Against Therapy: Emotional Tyranny and the Myth of Psychological Healing. ISBN 0-689-11929-1
1990. Final Analysis: The Making and Unmaking of A Psychoanalyst. Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-201-52368-X.
1993. My Father's Guru: A Journey Through Spirituality and Disillusion, Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-201-56778-4
Dogs Never Lie About Love: Reflections on the Emotional World of Dogs.
1995. When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Life of Animals.
The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals.
The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats: A Journey Into the Feline Heart.
The Cat Who Came in from the Cold. Wheeler. ISBN 1587249146
The Emperors Embrace Reflections on Animal Families and Fatherhood.
The Evolution of Fatherhood: A Celebration of Animal and Human Families.
Raising the Peaceable Kingdom: What Animals Can Teach Us about the Social Origins of Tolerance and Friendship.
Lost Prince : The Unsolved Mystery of Kaspar Hauser.
Slipping into Paradise: Why I live in New Zealand. ISBN 0-345-46634-9
2006. Altruistic Armadillos - Zen-Like Zebras: A Menagerie of 100 Favorite Animals. ISBN 978-0-345-47881-8 (0-345-47881-9)
undated, [1]
1995 A Note on U.G. Krishnamurti