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The topic of psychoanalytic reconstruction has received fervent attention since Freud's contributions on the subject matter. Based on his early work in hypnosis, Freud gave the recovery of infantile memories a paramount position in the understanding and treatment of neurotic disturbances. In his view, which was influenced by his interests in archeology, past memories were buried in the trenches of the unconscious and had to be “dug up” or recovered, worked through, and reintegrated into the character structure in order to facilitate mature emotional development. Unfortunately, his archeological description of memories contributed to much misunderstanding and controversy surrounding the notion of memories as being static and unaltered from their original encoded form. This occurs despite the fact that Freud, very early on in his writings, recognized the role of distortion in patients' memories .
Associated with Freud's early views on infantile memories, which were based on the topographical model, was his idea that successful psychoanalytic work came about through the removal of infantile amnesia. However, with the advent of the structural model and with further understanding and elaboration of the relationship among memory, dreams, and the primal scene, Freud came to view memory reconstruction as substituting for and contributing to memory recovery (Blum, 1998; Freud, 1937). Eventually, this led to an analytic technique shift away from memory recovery and toward the analysis of transference.
In his presentation, “Psychoanalytic Reconstruction and Reintegration,” Dr. Harold Blum revisited the topic of reconstruction from both historical and contemporary perspectives. As a point of departure, Blum discussed Freud's emphasis on childhood memories and the essential role they play