Masson's reconstruction or conclusion is that Freud himself was a victim of sexual abuse by his nanny when he was a small child, but that he blocked out any conscious recollection of the events. So much for psychoanalytic proof! There is no evidence that Freud was ever seduced. But the seduction is assumed by Masson because it explains particular errors of memory and particular affects in the adult Freud.
2. 'negated depression'? what's that?
Negated depression (unconscious depression) is depression that is defended against by another, conscious affect. The depression is not manifest in the conscious mind. Various mental states are assumed to defend against depression: manic states, aggression, addiction (substance abuse or sexual addiction, for example -- even asceticism can be seen as an addiction that can defend against depression), and as Masson talks about in this paper, states of mystic elation can defend against depression.
3. so he is saying that some people experience "nostalgia of a lost past" which comprises a "denial of childhood misery". i understand that to mean that because of an emotionally empty childhood experience, which he equates to an abusive one, some people tend to experience false images of a childhood they never had.
That's EXACTLY what Masson is saying. Masson would say that Freud had feelings of nostalgia for his nanny as a defense against the painful affects of humiliation and victimization by his nanny. (Although there is no evidence that the nanny abused Freud sexually, she was in fact a thief who stole money from the Freud family and was fired from her position. Also, the nanny was Catholic and the Freud family was Jewish. The nanny tried to indoctrinate the boy Freud in Catholicism -- that much is known. And yes, there is a cryptic comment in Freud's autobiography: "My nanny was my first teacher in sexual matters.")
4. maybe he also says (and perhaps it is lost somewhere in the detail) that these people tend to inflict upon others a similar suffering; and by doing so they are only reenacting their experiences in a world they have known all their lives to be one in which original actions are devoid of the force of feeling and emotions. also, sometimes they create mystical and episodic images to replace the void left behind by these capacities.
The first part of what you say is a reasonable reading and is supported by the literature on child abuse. Abused children tend to be abusers in adulthood. But that phenomenon, in a technical psychoanalytic sense, would be termed "identification with the aggressor." The victim acts like the aggressor did in the past.
What Masson had in mind here is a concept from psychoanalysis called the "repetition compulsion." Some people repeat or reenact painful situations from childhood in an attempt to master a situation over which they had no control as children. Here, the victim places himself in a situation in which he will reexperience the same kind of abuse he experienced earlier in life. Thus, the victim of child abuse engineers or seeks out social situations in adulthood in which he will be abused as he was as a child. For example, an abused female child may seek out abusive men in adulthood.
The second part of your statement is a correct representation of Masson's thesis. Mystical states of elation, in Masson's view, replace the void of an emotionally empty childhood or the pain of an overtly abusive childhood.
5. if that's what Masson's saying in this paper, i am intrigued as to his methods. how does he conclude such things? how does one determine if such abstract theories are sound with the comfort of context? --
Masson is a trained psychoanalyst and therefore underwent a training analysis himself. As such he has read extensively in the literature and was able to see in himself (during his training analysis) the emergence of phenomena described in the literature. He was also a professor of Sanskrit at the University of Toronto, so his knowledge of mysticism is based on his extensive readings in the field of Asian studies. Also, Masson's parents were wealthy and had a "guru" living with the family, so Masson had the life experience of growing up with a mystic. One of Masson's books is titled "My Father's Guru." As for Masson's psychoanalytic methods, I tried to give you some idea of how analysts think in my discussion above.
Again, it's based on inference and comparison and anecdotal evidence -- trying to make sense of phenomena that on their face make no sense, such as errors of memory and affective states that don't seem to fit the manifest situation but might plausibly fit an earlier experience in childhood that is blocked out in the adult's memory. Psychoanalysis itself is a kind of "mystical" field that is based a lot on faith rather than on hard evidence. You either accept its methods or you don't.
The reason I directed this blog post to you, Shiv, is that I was curious about what someone of your cultural background would make of Masson's ideas. Masson is himself a renegade, both in psychoanalysis and Asian studies. He was thrown out of the International Psychoanalytic Association for publicly questioning certain basic tenets of Freud. And as for mysticism, he thinks mystics are sadistic impostors, who are simply compensating for their own sad past."--GF
Are you in any way attracted to psychoanalytical thinking?
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