The Memory Matrix: Towards a Psychoanalytic Understanding for a Spectrum of Dissociative Forgetting

This paper draws upon psychoanalytic work with children and young adults to describe how the role of dissociation may have more importance in informing the clinical encounter than previously thought. Psychiatric definitions for dissociative disorders only account for the more established and potentially extreme end of what this paper proposes is a clinical spectrum. With reference to clinical work, this paper leverages theory, underpinned by Freud’s original thoughts on forgetting and dissociative defences, to consider a more unified and interconnected approach. A new model of dissociation is proposed, which unifies the prosaic aspects of forgetting/forgetfulness, the better-known dissociative disorders, and a new category of ‘micro-dissociations’, within which some presentations which are not currently considered to be dissociative in nature may fall. This will include, in some cases, the inattentive symptoms of ADHD, and the interference of memory in some aspects of anxiety and OCD. The paper considers forgetting and inattention seen in sessions with patients which justify this category of ‘micro-dissociations’ as a potentially more useful explanation of symptomatology.