Freud or Fraud? Discuss the contribution of Freudian theory to the false/recovered memory debate.

Authors Avatar

Student Number: 151381

Freud or Fraud? Discuss the contribution of Freudian theory to the false/recovered memory debate

Introduction

Many observations have been made condemning Freudian theory – especially the involvement of his theory of repression as being the underlying influential cause of the recovered memory movement that has seen a rise in reported alleged ‘recovered’ memories of child sex abuse, with estimations made by Frederick Crews (1994) in addition to others that a million people have, along with the help of their therapists, recovered supposedly repressed ‘memories’ of child sex abuse since 1988; generating a ferocious debate amongst memory researchers about the reality and reliability of these memories. The personal, social and even political implications of this debate have not only caused controversy in professional practice and academic circles, but also in courtrooms particularly in North America. The increase of allegations made against parents and others who assume an authoritative or caregiver-type role has resulted in the setting up of numerous organisations that offer support for victims of false allegations of abuse made against them such as the British False Memory Society, and F.A.C.T. (falsely accused carers and teachers) with the most prevalent being the False Memory Syndrome Foundation.

The debate has focused the attention of memory researchers to examining the conditions under which memories are recovered; with a subsequent inquisition concerning possible suggestive influences of the therapist in the ‘recovery’ of such memories. As a result, the methods and practices of psychotherapists have been subject to scrutiny. Some psychotherapists have reacted to this scrutiny of their profession, branding it to be undermining the credibility of victims of repressed memories of abuse and therapists alike. Lawyers and medical practitioners have found reason to extensively deny the reality of child sex abuse finding support in the theory of the Oedipus complex in the infantile child, which advocates that young children often fantasise about engaging in sexual relations with their parents, thus providing psychological evidence that undermines the credibility of allegations of sexual abuse during childhood, since it is possible that they could be construed as fantasies.

In order to assess fully the implications of Freudian theory to the false/recovered memory debate, it is of interest to provide a brief overview of Freud’s early work which he continued to revise  - but may help us in determining just how much impact the findings of Freud had on society.

The History of what Freud actually said

Originally trained as physician, Freud was most interested in the branch of medicine that was psychiatry and consequently found himself being presented with cases of women suffering from Hysteria throughout the 1880s. Applying the techniques of hypnosis observed and acquired under the instruction of Jean Martin Charcot - a Professor of  Neuropathology in Vienna who used hypnosis to demonstrate that ‘hysterical phenomena’ were genuine complaints of a psychological origin, and were neither signs of malingering nor of organic dysfunction (Jacobs, 1992) - to his patients, in a letter to his faithful and valued friend and correspondent Wilhelm Fliess in 1893, Freud came to the primary assertion that “It may be taken as well known that neurasthenia is a frequent consequence of an abnormal sex life. The assertion, however, which I should like to make and test with observations is that neurasthenia can in fact only be a sexual neurosis” (in Gay, 1998). In search of evidence to back up his claims of the roots of hysteria lying in sexual problems, Freud colluded his work on his patients with that of his colleague Josef Breuer and together they published a book called Studies in Hysteria (1895) in which they provided case studies supporting their notion that “sexuality seems to play a principal part in the pathogenesis of hysteria as a source of physical traumas and as a motive for ‘defence’ – that is, for repressing ideas from consciousness.” Breuer and Freud, through the collaboration of their findings, had reached the conclusion that when a specific memory association for each symptom had been identified, the symptoms in the patients disappeared and were apparently cured. Freud noticed the frequency with which these painful and forgotten memories were found to relate to traumatic sexual experiences in childhood, as he began to actually listen to what his patients said encouraging them to talk freely, he came to the conclusion that hysteria was produced when the patient had been the passive victim of sexual seduction by an adult in childhood. Breuer however, perhaps fearful of the implications of such findings on society, was less convinced than Freud and eventually ceased to associate with him, leaving Freud to continue developing his ideas alone. Freud’s own father died in 1896 and Gay (1998) claims that this had a profound effect on Freud who did not have an easy relationship with his father, and may have been responsible for the emphasis he placed on the oedipal complex. Freud was immersed with trying to determine the possibility that these memories of sexual abuse were real and in most cases were incurred by the fathers of his patients. Tied in with the fact that Freud’s own relationship with his father was an estranged one (Gay, 1998) led his to conclude that all female (because most of his patients were female) neuroses were caused by sexual abuse by their fathers during childhood. Freud presented these ideas in his paper entitled The Aetiology of Hysteria at a conference, which was not well received by his peers. 

Join now!

By 1897 Freud had abandoned the idea of sexual abuse origins of neuroses and in letter to Fleiss wrote that he had decided to conclude that most of these apparent memories of his patients were in fact a product of their fantasies. This idea of fantasy led to the development of the oedipal complex where children have fantasies about their parents. Freud was still concerned with determining the cause of neurosis and developed a theory of repression which originates from the oedipal complex – the fantasies that children have towards their parents are repressed by the children as they realise ...

This is a preview of the whole essay