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Belonging to two different disciplines (Dr. Freedgood is a scholar of literature; Dr. Richman is a psychoanalyst), the two authors approached the questions related to Memory, History and Autobiography from different perspectives. I shall discuss the two papers together, however, as this will permit me to integrate—to some degree, at least—the literary and historical perspectives on the one hand with that of the autobiographical one on the other. While Dr. Richman's paper is strictly autobiographical, Dr. Freedgood has undertaken the task of linking personal (autobiographical) memory to history.
My discussion is in four parts: (1) I reflect on some of the current views on autobiographical memory; (2) describe my views on “trauma” (3) briefly refer to the relationship between autobiographical and collective memory, and (4) give some examples of the way in which traumatic memories my become transformed into creative activity.
The clinical and theoretical significance of the recall of memories has undergone considerable changes in the course of the history of psychoanalysis. We no longer think of memory as fossilized remnants of a bygone past. Rather, when recalled, memories are frequently fragmented, elusive, and selective; this is particularly true for episodic1 memories that constitute the major part of autobiographical memory. In the most recent trend, in the hermeneutic-narrative approach, the remembered events are expected to