Abstract
Memory played a central role in the development of psychoanalysis. But what is the role of memory in our current theory of mind, and in our thinking about the psychoanalytic process, more than a century after Freud's first formulations? Are memories themselves crucial to an experience of psychic integrity, or as Freud suggested in his later work, are we “constructing” something more fundamental? Using the lens of the development and destruction of personal agency, this paper suggests that the possession of memory and the feeling of having one's own mind is a capacity that is developed in relational space; “if someone is there” (Winnicott). In the absence of being able to feel the impact of one's mind on others, memory will be dissociated. Through a clinical vignette, the paper suggests that the ability to feel ownership of one's mind, and to tell even the saddest memories, must arise in the understanding that one's own mind matters to other people.
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