Reported abuse was actually a fantasy

The argument

Freud’s insistence that children have sexual urges seems bizarre today; the number of possibly abused patients he saw and the potential damage he caused by explaining their stories of abuse as their own childhood fantasies is of enormous concern. This can be seen, namely, in Freud's theory of the Oedipus Complex in which Freud claims that children have "imagined, sexualized [fantasies]" about their caretakers. It is still unclear and contested whether or not Freud truly believed that people who claimed to have experienced sexual abuse were actually recounting fantasies or things they made up in their minds. Some believed that Freud denied his original seduction theory merely because of the pressure of his academic and medical peers. The seduction theory was far beyond its time and people were not prepared to face such ideas. But ultimately, he did privately recant this theory and supported the idea that these reported accounts of abuse were not actual abuse, but were fantasies. Sigmund Freud was more comfortable with undermining his female patients by recounting his theory and stating that many of these reports were imagined-- taking the blame and responsibility off of the male abusers. He played off his patients' sexual abuse instead of reporting it or helping them through the trauma. Due to Freud, many people had their sexual abuse played off as part of their imagination.

Premises

Counter-arguments

As mentioned in the argument, to this day, there is much debate surrounding Freud’s true views on the impact of sexual abuse on one’s psyche. In his original theory of seduction, Freud claimed, in disregard of his peers, hysteria in patients was caused by sexual abuse in their childhood. This was not only revolutionary but blasphemous in its time. Freud’s peers insisted he not publish the work because of his lack of clinical evidence and the irreversible damage this would do to his reputation. Some believe that it was this response from his medical and psychological colleagues that made him recant this theory. Many view Freud as, yes, a problematic man, but more so as someone who was an empathic visionary in a time that was problematic and not yet ready to face the horrible reality of sexual abuse that so many women faced.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] What Freud held, and when, is disputed among historians, and the relationship between the abandonment of the seduction theory and the later Oedipal material is not the straight substitution the premise describes. [Rejecting P2] The consequences are attributed too directly to one man. Freud's influence on how allegations were received in the twentieth century operated through institutions, courts and clinical fashion, and the premise treats a theoretical shift as though it were a policy of dismissal — while omitting that the seduction theory, which located the cause in real abuse, was his own and was resisted by his contemporaries.