In 1970, Masson began studying to become a psychoanalyst at the Toronto Psychoanalytic Institute, completing a full clinical training course in 1978. His training analyst was Irvine Schiffer, a well-known Toronto analyst and author of books on the unconscious aspects of
charisma and time. In 1990 Masson published an autobiographical book in which he accused Schiffer of cursing, being constantly late for sessions, and intimidating Masson when the latter complained about this issue. Schiffer denied it and debated Masson on the Canadian television program
The Fifth Estate. During this time, Masson befriended the psychoanalyst
Kurt Eissler and became acquainted with
Sigmund Freud's daughter
Anna Freud. Eissler designated Masson to succeed him as Director of the
Sigmund Freud Archives after his and Anna Freud's deaths. Masson learned
German and studied the
history of psychoanalysis. In 1980 Masson was appointed Projects Director of the Freud Archives, with full access to Freud's correspondence and other unpublished papers. While perusing this material, Masson concluded that Freud might have rejected the seduction theory in order to advance the cause of
psychoanalysis and to maintain his own place within the psychoanalytic inner circle, after a hostile response from the renowned sex-pathologist
Richard von Krafft-Ebing and the rest of the Vienna Psychiatric Society in 1896 — "an icy reception from the jackasses," was the way Freud described it later to
Fliess. In 1981, Masson's controversial conclusions were discussed in a series of
New York Times articles by Ralph Blumenthal, to the dismay of the psychoanalytic establishment. Masson was subsequently dismissed from his position as project director of the Freud Archives and stripped of his membership in psychoanalytic professional societies. Masson was defended by
Alice Miller and
Muriel Gardiner ("While striving not to take sides," Gardiner said, "I consider him a good and energetic worker and a worthwhile scholar"). Masson later wrote several books critical of psychoanalysis, including ''
The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory. In the introduction to The Assault on Truth
, Masson challenged his critics to address his arguments: "My pessimistic conclusions may possibly be wrong. The documents may in fact allow a very different reading." Janet Malcolm interviewed Masson at length when writing her long New Yorker article on this controversy ("Annals of Scholarship: Trouble in the Archives"), which she later expanded into In the Freud Archives'', a book that also dealt with Eissler and with
Peter Swales. In 1984 Masson sued
The New Yorker, Janet Malcolm, and the publisher
Alfred A. Knopf for
defamation, claiming that Malcolm had misquoted him. The ensuing trial drew considerable attention. The U.S. district court ruled against Masson. In 1989 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco upheld the lower court's decision. "The Court of Appeals affirmed ... [t]he court assumed for much of its opinion that Malcolm had deliberately altered each quotation not found on the tape recordings, but nevertheless held that petitioner failed to raise a jury question of actual malice." Masson petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court, which reversed the Court of Appeals decision and sent the case back to trial by jury. The decade-long ten-million-dollar federal lawsuit came to a close in 1994 when the jury and the court again ruled in
The New Yorker's favor. Subsequent to the case, Janet Malcolm claimed to have found her handwritten notes indicating that Masson had lied in relation to the remaining disputed quotations, as he had lied in relation to quotations where there were recordings. Meanwhile, in 1985, Masson edited and translated Freud's complete correspondence with
Wilhelm Fliess after having convinced Anna Freud to make it available in full. He also looked up the original places and documents in La
Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, where Freud had studied with
Charcot. Masson writes that the scientific community has been largely silent about his views, and that he suffered personal attacks once he deviated from the traditional views on the seduction theory and the history of psychoanalysis. == Later work ==