ABSTRACT
There are many kinds of memory. The neuroscientific understanding of memory centres on issues related to the unconscious mind, and therefore ought to be of particular interest to psychoanalysts. Information flows through the memory system in a series of stages. Working memory, also called short-term memory, is responsible for the search and retrieval of information from long-term memory that is involved in many higher cognitive functions. Long-term memory is the permanent storage of information. Long-term memory itself is divided into explicit and implicit memory. Some important clinical implications for psychoanalysis regarding current neuroscience research on memory relate to the finding that explicit and implicit memory are processed differently and can become disconnected from one another. The close relationship between encoding cues and retrieval cues explains why elaborative encoding is so effective for enhancing explicit memory. It provides more associative encoding cues, and therefore increases chances for retrieval cues to reinstate a memory.
