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I want to begin this paper with a clinical vignette concerning a patient who began analysis in late middle age. Although her adolescence had taken place more than four decades before and was all but forgotten, memories of that period were quickly and vividly revived in the course of treatment. Or, more precisely, memories of certain phases of adolescence were revived; others—as it turned out quite critical ones—remained concealed beneath these more accessible recollections.
The patient, Mrs. C., had experienced a troubled and unstable childhood involving abandonment by her father and the divorce of her parents; by the age of fifteen, she was on her own. Already a talented performer, she entered show business and began a life of travel and adventure. At least that is what she told herself, and stories compatible with that perception became woven into a personal myth about those years.
In fact, Mrs. C.'s existence was quite miserable. Playing two-bit clubs in the most forgettable towns along both coasts, her life was a series of unhappy encounters with coarse patrons,