The concept of "screen memories" was introduced by Freud for the first time in his 1899 paper, reprinted here in its entirety. Although the clinical interest in "screen memories" has perhaps diminished in recent analytic discussion, there is much to be gained from revisiting and re-examining both the phenomenon and Freud's original paper within a contemporary context. To this end, Gail S. Reed and Howard B. Levine have invited contributions from eight leading psychoanalysts on the current meaning and value to them of the screen memory concept. These comments come from contemporary psychoanalysts practicing in Italy, Francophone Switzerland, Argentina, Israel, and the United States of America, each of whom has been trained in one or another of a variety of psychoanalytic traditions, among which are ego psychology, a French version of Freud, an American version of Lacan and at least two variants of Kleinian thought - one British and one Latin American. Their comments range from advocating that screen memories are an important, even central, feature of contemporary analytic work (LaFarge, Cohen), to finding the concept less universally applicable, but nonetheless compelling (Ahumada). The editors hope that the encounter with these creative and thought-provoking commentaries will give new meaning to our appreciation of this important clinical phenomenon and stimulate further research and clinical observation into its origins and uses. Contributors: Jorge L. Ahumada, Franco De Masi, Rivka R. Eifermann, Lucy LaFarge, Nellie Thompson, Shlomith Cohen, Florence Guignard, Howard B. Levine, Gail S. Reed, and John P. Muller. About the Editors: Gail S. Reed, Lic. Psychoanal. and PhD in Comparative Literature, practices psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy in New York City, in English and French. She is a Training and Supervisory Analyst and Faculty at the Training Institute of the New York Freudian Society, the Berkshire Psychoanalytic Institute and NPAP and is an Honorary Member of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. She is author of two previous books, Transference Neurosis and Psychoanalytic Experience: Perspectives on Contemporary Clinical Practice (Yale University Press, 1994) and Clinical Understanding (Jason Aronson, 1996), as well as numerous articles. She is President and a Founding Member of the Group for the Study of the Psychoanalytic Process, Associate Editor for Foreign Books and on the Editorial Board of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, and on the Editorial Board of The Psychoanalytic Quarterly and of Psychoanalytic Inquiry. Howard B. Levine is a member of the faculty and a supervising analyst at the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis (MIP), a member of the faculty at the Psychoanalytic Institute of New England East (PINE) and is in private practice in Brookline, Massachusetts. He is a member of the American Psychoanalytic Association and the IPA, a founding member of the Group for the Study of Psychoanalytic Process (GSPP) and The Boston Group for Psychoanalytic Studies, Inc. (BGPS). Dr. Levine has served on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association and Psychoanalytic Inquiry and currently serves as North American Representative to the Board of the IPA. He is editor of Adult Analysis and Childhood Sexual Abuse (Analytic Press 1990), co-editor of The Psychology of the Nuclear Threat (Analytic Press 1986) and Growth and Turbulence in the Container/Contained (Routledge 2012) and has authored numerous articles, book chapters, and reviews on various subjects related to psychoanalytic process and technique, intersubjectivity, comparative psychoanalytic studies, the treatment of primitive personality disorders and the consequences and treatment of early trauma and childhood sexual abuse. |