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This paper presents the idea that the patient's first memory can be useful in formulating a psychodynamic diagnosis as well as affording a convenient illustrative device for teaching dynamic psychiatry. The first memory is not merely a recollection which contains the earliest and clearest derivatives of basic infantile conflicts, but is also a highly overdetermined construction which serves as a compromise formation just as does the neurotic symptom. The authors present examples of earliest remembrances of patients suffering from psychosomatic disorders, masochistic character neuroses, anxiety hysteria, etc. and demonstrate how in the earliest memories one finds significant correlations with the diagnostic category. It is interesting that the first memories of schizoid and schizophrenic patients do not fall into any one pattern; these memories often emphasize a solitary situation or one of autoerotic activity. It is one of the few diagnostic categories in which the first memory may be a frankly sexual one. The authors advocate the eliciting of the first conscious memory routinely as part of the anamnesis of all psychiatric patients.