ABSTRACT

The cave art found in Southwest France powerfully evokes the potency of time. There are hand impressions on many of the cave walls, purposely done in realistic outline as if spray-painted. This chapter provides a concrete sense of the workings of temporality in analytic work. Claw marks comprise the only articulated presence in the cave, and conveys figuration at its most elemental. As in Palaeolithic cave art, the most precious human creations are symbols. Symbolism is the emblem of human participation in time. Episodic memory is also largely missing in children under the age of four. The drawer test helps clarify the time of emergence of episodic memory. The chapter concludes with some findings in the neuroscience of time that show a surprising degree of resonance with contemporary psychoanalytic views.