Ilka Quindeau's Trace and Retranscription presents psychoanalytic scholars and practitioners a riveting discussion on the subject of memory. Both a practicing psychoanalyst and an academic sociologist, Quindeau argues that memory is essentially an intersubjective phenomenon and that a close study of memory reveals how psychic structure is built. Her goal is to offer an intersubjective theory of memory that is based on Freud's theory of memory. Quindeau is convincing in her belief that Freud's theory of memory has too often been erroneously simplified and prematurely discarded. Failure to appreciate the central role of memory in the development of psychic structure, she insists, undermines the explanatory power of psychoanalysis, in both theoretical and clinical dimensions.

Quindeau's book is divided into three parts: (1) Memory as a Psychological and Social Process; (2) Traces of a Psychoanalytic Theory of