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The present article aims to apply Freudian methodology -the search for inscriptions of the truth in all available modern sources- to recent neuroscientific findings concerning memory. We examine what in these data is consistent with clinical experience and Psychoanalytic theory, where there is divergence or validation of certain psychoanalytic approaches, and what new conceptual and theoretical paths can be opened.
Specifically, we examine the possible contribution of recent cognitive and neuroscientific findings to the ongoing psychoanalytic controversy over two main and interrelated issues concerning memory: (a) whether it is desirable -even feasible- for psychoanalytic therapy to aim at the restoration of (psychic) truth, in the ‘there and then’, or whether the co-construction of a coherent and meaningful personal narrative, in the 'here and now -which is not necessarily linked to something pre-existent in the patient's unconscious- is the only feasible aim and a major curative, organizing factor (b) whether the effects of early or severe trauma on memory traces and processes compel us to adapt theoretical conceptualizations and clinical practices beyond the classical conflict model. It is apparent that these issues are closely intertwined with the exploration and delineation of the nature of mutative agents in the psychoanalytic process: Whether therapeutic change is mainly instigated through the insights into the unconscious meanings of the patient's communications, or predominantly derives from the nature and dynamics in the evolving analytic relationship.
In conclusion, this paper was born in the hope that there can develop a common conceptual ground for the linking of psychoanalytic & neuroscientific hypotheses, leading to a fruitful interdisciplinary collaboration.