By comparing Freud's autobiographical text, “A disturbance of memory on the Acropolis” , with the article “Building a past for oneself” by Piera Aulagnier (1989), the author explores the different layers of identification that emerge in the associations of the elderly Freud, focusing on those that concern adolescents and young adults. It is also the history of psychoanalysis, from its birth to its inventor's anxiety about its future, that shines through in this extremely condensed text.