ABSTRACT
In a volume on theories of memory, psychoanalysis is of interest for its idea of unconscious memory. Psychoanalysis provides the theory and the practice of transforming unconscious memory into conscious memory. The ability to decipher and bring to consciousness what was out of reach for remembrance, and the curative power of this transformation are integral parts in the ascription of unconscious memory. Unconscious memory is part of Sigmund Freud's dynamic model of the soul, a topology of psychic regions and a system of psychic agencies, separated by boundaries and allowing for transactions between the regions, both cooperative and antagonistic in the interactions between the agencies. Jacques Lacan claims to continue and to bring into its own Freud's psychoanalysis, allegedly misrepresented by some of Freud's followers, while proposing his own theory under the guise of a "return to Freud".
