ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the problem of amnesia and its contribution to the existing literature on the neuropsychological and psychoanalytical basis of memory systems, and its potential relevance for psychoanalytic theory and praxis. It discusses observations from a long-term psychoanalytic process of an individual with profound amnesia after an anoxic episode. Interpersonal functioning is a key feature of psychoanalytic work, arguably even more so with individuals who have experienced a brain injury. The existence of separate memory systems has clear importance to the theory and practice of psychoanalytic therapy. Repetitive phenomena were to become strikingly prominent and common features in the treatment with J.L., as repetition is in all psychoanalytic treatments; however, it was much more amplified and intensive in the instance. Working from a psychoanalytically oriented frame of reference allowed the therapist to access emergent layers of meaning to the repetitions.
