Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson quotes

Those who live with pigs often speak of them as we normally speak of dogs-intelligent, loyal, and above all, affectionate. Each one, I am continually reminded by people who know them, is a complete individual, like no other pig. (Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson)
Ferenczi was considered paranoid for believing his women patients; the men's confessions were not even discussed. Ernest Jones, the powerful English analyst who had been Ferenczi's analysand, now took up the cudgel against him in deadly seriousness. Jones let it be known after Ferenczi's death in 1933 (he died a few months after the quarrel with Freud) that he was really a homicidal maniac. While I was in London working in the Jones archives I discovered what this really meant: Jones believed that to disagree with Freud (the father) was tantamount to patricide (father murder). And so, because Ferenczi believed that children were sexually abused and Freud did not, Ferenczi was branded by Jones as a homicidal maniac, and this piece of scurrilous interpretation stuck. View quote
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
Unlike a human smile, purring cannot be, as far as anyone knows, faked. View quote
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
In my experience, psychoanalysis demanded loyalty that could not be questioned, the blind acceptance of unexamined "wisdom". It is characteristic of religious orders to seek obedience without scepticism, but it spells the death of intellectual enquiry. All variants of "because I say so," or because the Koran says so, or the Bible says so, or the Upanishads say so, or Freud says so, or Marx says so, are simply different means of stifling intellectual dissent. In the end they cannot satisfy the inquisitive mind or still the doubts that naturally arise when such a mind is confronted with authoritative statements about human behavior. View quote
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
Every day I get many calls, from all over the world about how awful you are. How awful this article is. How bad it all is for psychoanalysis. View quote
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
Almost all analysts in America are physicians and psychiatrists, and the medical profession is layered into a strict hierarchy. Every psychiatrist in a hospital is chief of some service, or head of some department. View quote
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
The cat does not merely experience contentment, he exudes it. You cannot be in the presence of a contented cat and not have some of that contentment rub off on you. Which surely is a good part of the reason we love cats so. View quote
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
Khan told me: "Nobody wants to say anything publicly because I know too much about all of them. If we were all to be honest with each other, that would be the end of British psychoanalysis." View quote
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
Because I was so eager to believe I was being helped by a talented, ethical, benevolent, and intelligent man, I sought evidence for this wherever I could. Anything less than this was too dreadful to contemplate. View quote
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
I was thrilled. I loved the idea of opening everything up, of making old and secret documents available to anybody who wished to see them. View quote
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
When the underlying reality is particularly unpleasant, we minimize-numbing ourselves to the actual extent of the real story. We say, "Things can't possibly be as bad as people tell us,” because we don't want them to be that bad. This is a form of magical thinking, a way of shutting our eyes. Surely if things were that bad, somebody would do something about it. Withdrawal can take the form of removing our interest (another horror story about furry pets, yawn, yawn); or our wandering attention (understandably, since we are besieged by other equally pressing images of horror). Of course this reaction can be genuine: not everyone need become an activist in the cause to end animal suffering. And becoming a vegetarian may seem like going too far. In fact, it is not such a difficult step and could be legitimately seen as the very best form of activism. (Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson)
[About pigs] ... of all animals their flesh most resembles human flesh, which is somewhat disconcerting when you consider that more than 40 percent of all meat raised in the world is pork. View quote
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
The idea, to a cat, that somebody else owns him is ludicrous. View quote
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
Somewhat to my surprise, I was accepted for membership in the society [the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Society]. I was looking forward to giving my inaugural paper, "The Navel of Neurosis: Trauma, Memory and Denial," the one I had written with my wife, Terri, and which Schiffer [Masson's analyst] had claimed as his. View quote
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
When I talk to farmers about how they treat the animals on their farms, I come up against a strange fact: while the general public and most research scientists all acknowledge that farm animals suffer, the farmers responsible for them have a tendency to deny it. View quote
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
Perhaps if we had realized they are birds, with all the wonderful characteristics of birds, we would have paid closer attention to the ways in which chickens can enchant us. Take dust-bathing, for example. We call it a bath because the chicken finds a small indentation of dry earth and then proceeds to immerse herself in it as into a warm bath. The earth cleans her feathers. The first time I saw a chicken taking a dust bath, stretching out one iridescent wing and holding it up to the sunshine, then settling into the warmth of the afternoon only to fly effortlessly to a tree to roost in the evening, I was astonished. View quote
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
Perhaps it is possible for humans to change directions, to look at animals not as competitors or as yet another race to colonize, but as models for achieving something that has eluded humans for their entire evolutionary history. If animals can learn to live with other species in peace, and sometimes even in friendship, is it not possible that observing this extraordinary ability may yet act as a catalyst for us? Is it not possible that harmony among nations need be not a mere fantasy, but something we can learn from observing the achievements of these so-called lesser species? All that is lacking are the will and the humility. View quote
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
Animals cry. At least, they vocalise pain or distress, and perhaps call for help. Most people believe, therefore, that animals can be unhappy and also that they have such feelings as happiness, anger and fear. But there is a tremendous gap between the common sense viewpoint and that of official science on this subject. The ordinary layperson readily believes that his dog, her eat, their parrot or horse, feels. They not only believe it but have constant evidence of it before their eyes. All of us have extraordinary stories of animals we know well. Yet, by dint of rigorous training and great efforts of the mind, most modern scientists - especially those who study the behaviour of animals - have succeeded in becoming almost blind to these matters. View quote
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
Many people feel more complete with a cat in their life, and I would not be surprised if cats felt the same way about us. I know that if I disappeared from the lives of my five cats, they would not be as happy as before. I know, because they wait for me to go on walks along the beach, though they could perfectly well go on their own. When I am with them, they react in such a strong way, gamboling, racing ahead of me, and then flopping down in my path, that it is obvious they derive great pleasure from my company. I find it hard to believe, though, that they could possibly enjoy my company as much as I enjoy theirs. This is not surprising: we domesticated cats for our benefit. While they get something from it, we probably got the better deal. View quote
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
There are many people who have undergone great suffering who seem to possess knowledge of the deepest recesses of human emotion unavailable to the rest of us. They may want to impart it, but we often cannot hear. Strangely enough, farm animals strike me in the same way. View quote
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
I liked the idea of representing nobody but myself. No affiliation, no ties, no loyalties. (Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson)
This book is about a simple, benign experiment, or perhaps we should call it an inquiry, to learn what are the essential ingredients in interspecies friendships and even love. The basic idea was to raise together a kitten, a puppy, a bunny, a chick, and a baby rat in close circumstances to see if they would all get along and even become good friends. View quote
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
I still yearned then, and probably even more so earlier, for a strong, masculine person on whom I could pattern myself. Somebody I could admire, and imitate, and become close to and learn from. I had sought this, always, in my teachers, and my search had always ended in disappointment. I was attracted emotionally to a position that I could only despise intellectually. View quote
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
But Eissler also knew how the very people making the complaints and demanding my dismissal for what was, after all, a disagreement about the history of psychoanalysis, were guilty of extraordinary breaches of ethical conduct. View quote
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
Cats are contented with their lot, with or without our approval. They have less need of us than we would like. It would flatter us to think that cats cannot survive without us, that they need us emotionally as well as materially, whereas in fact they probably do not need us in either sphere. This wounds our vanity. We need cats to need us. It unnerves us that they do not. However, if they do not need us, they nonetheless seem to love us. View quote
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson