Letters

To the Editor:

This letter is written to correct two factual errors in the review by Sophie Freud of three of Jeffrey Masson's books (Psychoanalytic Books, 2, 1-15).

Dr. Freud writes “When Masson finally settles down in San Francisco as a psychoanalyst he finds that he neither enjoys nor has any special talent for clinical work” (p. 4). The fact is that Masson never settled down anywhere as a psychoanalyst. When he first came to Berkeley (not San Francisco) he told me that his entire clinical experience up to that point had consisted of his four psychoanalytic control cases during his training. I remember being shocked at this paucity of experience and could not but compare it to my own ongoing responsibilities for many hundreds of psychotherapy and psychoanalytic cases throughout medical school, internship, residency and private practice. I know that Masson tried, and failed, to establish a clinical practice when he arrived in the San Francisco Bay area. Some few referrals may have been made to him. I believe I would have known had he done any psychoanalytic work at all here, and I believe he did none. His psychoanalytic experience consists of four cases in Canada, training cases.

Sophie Freud begins her review as follows: “Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson's expulsion from the psychoanalytic establishment was a dramatic event in the worlds of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.” It is an event that did not occur, and the canard should be laid to rest. It is also called an “excommunication” (p. 1), and it is said that “…after a time [he] was dismissed as a member of the International, the San Francisco and the Canadian Psychoanalytic Societies” (p. 6). This is a fabrication to dismiss Masson's irresponsibility to both the Canadian and San Francisco Psychoanalytic Societies. His membership in the International was dependent on his membership in good standing in any component society. The