How can the analyst get access to early preverbal material in the patient's internal world? The author proposes a dynamic view of memory with no strict boundaries between different memory systems as particularly suitable for clinical purposes. Being in a state of evenly suspended attention and feeling open to all the verbal and non-verbal signals emanating from the patient, the analyst has the best opportunity to approach the archaic traces of early experiences even in the preverbal phase of development. Mutual enactments between analysand and analyst may help in this process as well as understanding the unconscious roots of the artistic activity of some patients. The author tries to illuminate his thoughts using the analysis of a children's book of the nineteenth century and examples from three psychoanalytic therapies.