On reminiscences

Recently, psychoanalysts have focused on narrative truth and hermeneutics with diminished attention to the role of remembering in symptom formation and treatment. This shift has tended to remove us from prior status as a motivational and cognitive science with potential for causal inferences. At the same time, psychiatry and cognitive science have moved toward a vigorous study of reminiscences and their role in pathology. Arguments for a revival of Freud's position on the central role of memory are cited. A case example is offered to show that Freud and his psychoanalytic progeny have never taken a simplistic view of archeological truth, but were among the original group to bring to light the distorting effect of mind on remembering, and actually led the way for other scientific approaches.