ABSTRACT
In Recommendations to Physicians Practising Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud first introduces the term “evenly suspended attention”, in the course of an open discussion of what would call the mental attitude of the analyst. According to W. R. Bion, the mental discipline required to work without memory and desire has a very precise purpose, which is that of easing the unconscious thought of the analyst, which is not only what Freud calls “unconscious memory”, but something more active. Freud goes on to talk very briefly about the fact that the analyst must make use of his own “unconscious memory”, and underlines the fact that it, for the moment, seems to be disconnected and in chaotic disorder, that it seems at first to be submerged. Freud, who formulates the rule for the analyst in these terms: He should withhold all conscious influences from his capacity to attend, and give himself over completely to his “unconscious memory”.
