The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory is a book published in 1984 by psychoanalyst and historian Jeffrey Masson. In the book, Masson criticizes Austrian neurologist (a person who treats the nervous system) Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) for abandoning the seduction theory, which held that neurotic illness in adults and adolescents was a result of their being sexually abused before puberty. Freud said that his patients confabulated the molestations and then rejected this theory. Masson says that Freud's original view was the correct one.