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Sigmund [[Freud ]] first published this article in [[French ]] in the <i>[[Revue neurologique]]</i> in [[Paris]]. It is important for two independent reasons. The first [[reason ]] is historical, in that it contains the first occurrence of the [[word ]] "[[psychoanalysis]]." The second reason is more [[theoretical]], in that the article makes a clear [[distinction ]] between Freud's theories and those deriving from Jean Martin Charcot's teaching on the [[role ]] of heredity in the etiology of the [[neuroses]]. The article goes on to provide a [[complete ]] exposition of Freud's [[thoughts ]] on the [[sexual ]] etiology of neuroses, and his [[theory ]] of [[seduction]].The opening [[sentence ]] reads: "I am addressing in [[particular ]] the disciples of J.-M. Charcot, in [[order ]] to put forward some objections to the aetiological theory of the neuroses which was handed on to us by our teacher" (1896a, 143). Heredity is only a "condition," to borrow the term used in the distinction already made the year before (1895f), but it is the "specific causes" that must be sought.Referring back to the nosographical distinctions he made between [[hysteria]], [[obsessional ]] [[neurosis]], neurasthenia, and [[anxiety ]] neurosis, he affirms that these "functional pathological modifications <i>have as their common source the [[subject]]'s sexual [[life]], whether they lie in a disorder of his contemporary [[sexual life ]] or in important events in his [[past ]] life</i>" (p. 149). He adds: 'I am quite sure that this theory will call up a storm of contradictions from contemporary physicians" (pp. 149-50).The etiology of neurasthenia lies in immoderate onanism and spontaneous pollutions, and that of anxiety neuroses in [[forced ]] [[abstinence]], or [[genital ]] irritation that does not result in [[orgasm]]. With [[regard ]] to the [[other ]] states: "I owe my results to a new method of [[psycho]]-[[analysis]], Josef [[Breuer]]'s exploratory procedure; it is a little intricate, but it is irreplaceable, so fertile has it shown itself to be in throwing light upon the obscure paths of [[unconscious ]] ideation" (p. 151). The origin of the disorders is a [[memory ]] that is related to the sexual life: "The [[event ]] of which the subject has retained an unconscious memory is <i>a precocious [[experience ]] of [[sexual relations ]] with actual excitement of the genitals, resulting from sexual abuse committed by [[another ]] person</i>; and <i>the period of life</i> at which this fatal event takes [[place ]] is <i>earliest youth</i>—the years up to the age of eight to ten, before the [[child ]] has reached sexual maturity" (p. 152). The memory of this act passively suffered in dread: "<i>The memory will operate as though it were a contemporary event</i>. What happens is, as it were, <i>a posthumous [[action ]] by a sexual [[trauma]]</i>" (p. 154).The precocious event can also be found in "[[obsessional neurosis]]," but with a "[[capital]]" [[difference]]: "it is a question . . . of an event which has given <i>[[pleasure]]</i>, of an act of [[aggression ]] inspired by [[desire ]] (in the [[case ]] of a boy) or of a [[participation ]] in sexual relations accompanied by [[enjoyment ]] (in the case of a little [[girl]]). The obsessional [[ideas ]] . . . are [[nothing ]] other than <i>reproaches addressed by the subject to himself on account of this anticipated seuxal enjoyment</i>" (p. 155).Sent to the <i>Neurologisches Zentralblatt</i> on the same day, February 5, 1896, the article <i>Further Remarks on the Neuro-[[Psychoses ]] of [[Defence]]</i> reviews the last two etiologies and develops the [[notion ]] of <i>[[repression]]</i>, which is [[missing ]] from the French [[text]]. Freud also adds the analysis of a "case of chronic [[paranoia]]" that shows that this affection also comes "from the repression of distressing memories and that its [[symptoms ]] are determined in their [[form ]] by the [[content ]] of what has been [[repressed]]" (1896b, pp. 174-75).Of course Freud had sent these considerations to Wilhelm Fleiss a few months earlier, but they find their first [[public ]] expression here. He made the following comment to Fleiss on April 26, 1896: "A lecture on the etiology of hysteria at the [[psychiatric ]] [[society ]] was given an icy reception by the asses and a strange evaluation by Krafft-Ebbing: 'It sounds like a [[scientific ]] fairy tale.' And this, after one has demonstrated to [[them ]] the solution of a more-than-thousand-year-old problem, a <i>caput Nili</i>. They can go to hell, euphemistically expressed"(1985c [1887-1904]).The [[seduction theory ]] has often been called into question in the course of the [[history ]] of psychoanalysis, from Freud's abandonment of his "neurotica" in September 1897. Taken up again by Sándor Ferenczi in 1932, then by his disciples, the theory has also seen polemical use, by Jeffrey Masson in 1984.

# [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1895f). A reply to criticisms of my paper on [[anxiety neurosis]]. SE, 3: 118-139.

# ——. (1985c [1887-1904]). The complete letters of [[Sigmund Freud ]] to Wilhelm [[Fliess ]] 1887-1904 (Jeffrey M. Masson, Ed. and Trans.). Cambridge, MA : Belknap/Harvard [[University ]] Press.