This collection of essays resulted from the First International Psychoanalytic Symposium held at Delphi in 1984. Delphi, the site of the Temple of Apollo, the home of the Oracle, related to the ancient, sacred, cultural myths of Western Civilization and linked to Freud's formulation of the oedipus complex, inspired the symposium's organizers, Peter Hartocollis, director of the Hellenic Psychoanalytic Study Group and Professor and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Patras, and Ian Graham, Director of the Canadian Institute of Psychoanalysis, to select the personal myth as the symposium's topic. In reading these papers, one can truly surmise the stimulating effect of this ancient and historic site upon the creativity and imaginations of the participants.

Ernst Kris was the first analyst to describe the “personal myth.” He noted that certain analysands substitute a revised and erroneous version of their life histories for the actual facts. He likened this revision to a screen memory and called it a personal myth. It served