ABSTRACT
This chapter is primarily intended to be a contribution to the psychology of memory disturbances. It aims to remind practitioners of the necessity for scepticism towards such of the patient's statements as concern the aetiology of his neurosis. Screen-memories of the type here described, so eagerly pushed into the foreground by the patient, always serve to lead the physician astray and to divert his attention from the deeper layers of the mind. The interpretation of the basement-shop scene as a screen-memory found an interesting confirmation from another source. The analysis of the patient's screen-memory is therefore of a fragmentary character; in the few available sessions it was not possible to analyse all his associations. The patient, a man of forty-seven, had suffered since his youth from an obsession. He had to look at and examine all objects in the most painstaking manner and especially had to make their back fully accessible to his view.
