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Ernst Kris in 1947 described psychoanalysis as the science of 'human behavior viewed as conflict' (18). This very apt phrase draws attention to an important aspect of psychoanalytic theory and therapy; also it characterizes the historical development of psychoanalysis from its inception. Freud wrote continuously in all his published works of clinical conflicts and of the symptoms which they produced. He strove then, as psychoanalysts have since, to identify and unfold the nature, ambiguities, and inconsistencies of intrapsychic conflicts—unique in each instance—that they may be resolved.
One has only to read Freud's early case histories to realize the frequency with which remembrance of experiences from the remote past provide the sources of the conflict and the bases of the symptoms (3). He investigated the influences of both in the origin of neuroses and in his creation of a psychology and a psychopathology of mental functioning (9).
A starting point for understanding something of the intimate relationship between conflict and memory is the common observation that whatever ego functions are involved in conflict, the ego function of memory is always implicated, and much more frequently than is usually realized. Clinically, the emergence of a memory is confirmation that a bit of the resolution of a defense has been achieved. The absence of memories is presumptive evidence of repressed conflicts. It is a task of psychoanalysis to assess memories in terms of the immature ego on which they were originally impressed, and to re-evaluate them in accordance with the realities of later life experiences and realities.