• one of the issues in masson's book was that he seems to believe the statements "psychotherapy inherently has the potential for abuse" and "psychotherapists are inherently abusive" as interchangeable. he suggests that every therapist will inevitably engage in some form of abuse towards their patient. i'm not sure i agree. i can concede with the practice of some forms of manipulation being, arguably, almost inevitable (although not necessarily excusable or desirable), but even then - suggesting the patient would be submissive or unable to defend themselves and argue against such an approach in every case or instance is simply untrue. such a statement perhaps speaks more of how therapy was practiced at the time the book was written (in the 80s) to a certain extent more so than now, thus dating the book a bit in that regard.
• in concluding that psychoanalysis/therapy should not have an alternative in the event of it being dissolved, masson displays his propensity throughout the book to negate the evolution of therapy (and therapists) throughout the decades. it's as if he sometimes expects therapy to have manifested perfectly, fully formed and devoid of imperfections, and yet still immediately denounces it once again. furthermore, while he suggests most people seeking therapy instead engage in conversations and relationships with others in which "an imbalance of power isn't present", he suggests no apparent (or viable) alternative to help those whose afflictions tend more towards obsessions, paranoias or delusions (in the vein of the "schizophrenias") that may not be so easy to rationalize or pinpoint the motive of, as opposed to the majority of symptoms akin to those of what we call depression or anxieties.
• ultimately, the points masson makes in the examples he provides in the extent of the abuses in the field of psychoanalysis (both in relation to their severity as well as in/

--

• "[...]once somebody is declared "mentally ill", you can do anything you want to them, including torture, as long as you claim that you are doing it for their own good."
• "As proof and justification of this suspicion, I remember certain statements Freud made to me. Obviously he was relying on my discretion. He said that patients are only riffraff. The only thing patients were good for is to help the analyst make a living and to provide material for theory.[...]Freud no longer likes sick people. He rediscovered his love for his orderly, cultivated superego. A further proof of this is his dislike and expressions of blame that he uses with respect to psychotics and perverts, in fact, his dislike of everything that he considers "too normal"[...]" (Sándor Ferenczi)