Fact and fantasy in the history of Freud's views on incest and seduction.

This article surveys the history of Freud's attitudes and theories about the etiologic role of actual incest and seduction and neurosis. It also surveys the debate in historical writing on that topic, much of which oversimplifies complex and contradictory data. Here is an instance in which history is being written and used as part of current debates and polemics, principally to either monolithically defend or attack Freud. This article argues that Freud's motives for downplaying the etiologic role of seduction in the neuroses were complex, did not involve cowardice, and need to be understood both in terms of internal developments in Freud's thinking as well as in terms of relevant external (for example, historical) factors.