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An analyst first learns of the analyst's memory from his or her own analyst, this fantastic capacity to pull together unexpected, forgotten, and illogical details and give them a sense and meaning, an effect that seems like magical omnipotence. This unusual memory is an aspect of the magical analytic phallus, or the inexhaustible analytic breast. Some analysands feel that the analyst forgets everything, that they must repeat everything, repressing a wish for omnipotence in the analyst, or the longing for perfect love that makes their every word precious. Still others seize on any evidence of an analyst's memory slip to proclaim that they are not loved at all.
Whatever their own attitude toward their analyst's memory, future analysts end up one day on the other side of the couch, sitting in the chair, possessing this magic instrument, the analyst's memory, which is at their disposal. This is the one aspect of analytic work that is not the subject of conferences, seminars, lectures, or colloquia. Yet the utilization of this magic instrument begins right away, and can be quite surprising and frightening, as well as the source of wonder.
This lacuna in analytic education (which, nonetheless, does not produce analysts devoid of memory) suggests that the memory is acquired through the course of the analyst's own analysis. It suggests an identification with this aspect of his or her own analyst, incorporated into the ego and into the ego ideal. It is the fantasied acquisition of parental knowledge and omnipotence, which includes a knowledge of the past.
So little has been written about this analytic memory, it is as if we do not consciously know how it operates. Perhaps it is so little studied because we attribute to