The author first reconstructs his discovery of distortion/disfiguration (Entstellung) as a central concept based on the Freudian theory of recollection. From the beginning to the end, Freud was particularly interested in faulty and incomplete memory, in other words, distorted memories. Based on this observation, the author concludes that distortion/defiguration is a nodal point for both metapsychological conceptualization and psychoanalytic technique. The different basic levels of psychoanalysis – clinical, theoretical and technical –intersect and converge in this concept.