You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
One day about ten years ago, while I was browsing through a number of the Revista de Psicoanàlisis, I came across a very short article entitled «Notas sobra la memoria y el deseo», which particularly struck me. What was so disquieting about it was not only the contents, which were surprising enough, but the unusual style, totally unexpected in a scientific paper. The author, who was then almost completely unknown to me, did not suggest, but rather proclaimed, in an uncompromising, sharp and almost hermetic fashion, the following statements:
«Memory is always misleading as a record of fact since it is distorted by the influence of unconscious forces. Desires interfere, by absence of mind when observation is essential, with the operation of judgement. Desires distort judgement by selection and suppression of material to be judged…
Every session attended by the psychoanalyst must have no history and no future.
What is «known» about the patient is of no further consequence: it is either false or irrelevant. If it is «known» by patient and analyst, it is obsolete. If it is «known» by the one but not the other, a defense or grid category 2 element is operating. The