NCJ Number
169121
Journal
Journal of Child Sexual Abuse Volume: 6 Issue: 2 Dated: (1997) Pages: 107-122
Date Published
1997
Length
16 pages
Annotation
Challenging assumptions that Freud's early writings have no place in the current discourse on child sexual abuse, this article reconstructs Freud's early treatment of Emma Eckstein.
Abstract
The methodology used in this historical reconstruction of one of Freud's cases offers the possibility for reconstituting Freud's pre-1901 writings as texts to be read within the discourse on child sexual abuse. By rethinking Freud's early work within the context of the discourse on child sexual abuse, it also becomes possible to challenge current Freudian orthodoxy, which continues to reduce Freud's early writings on trauma and deny their significance (Brennan, 1992; Mitchell and Black, 1995). Such a challenge is significant because Freudian orthodoxy, with its Oedipal paradigm, is now generally acknowledged to be one of the most important influences on the ways in which contemporary (white) western culture has constructed its images of childhood and its treatment of children (Steedman, 1995). To reclaim Freud's passionate, if short-lived commitment to the belief in the devastating long-term etiological significance of child sexual abuse is, therefore, also to ask of society in general, and policymakers in particular, why they continue to degrade the long-term individual effects of such abuse, while at the same time continuing to ignore the social, political, and economic repercussions that flow from it (The Research Team, 1990). 54 references