Tabula rasa: the attempt to forget what cannot be remembered

Abstract

The mind and the concept of tabula rasa are first linked together in Aristotle’s treatise De anima where he tells us, “… that thought is in a sense potentially what-ever is thinkable, though actually it is nothing until it has thought? What it thinks must be in it just as characters may be said to be on a writing-table on which as yet nothing actually stands written: this is exactly what happens with thought” (Aristotle, 1957, De anima, 3.4.429b31–430a2). This article explores how destructive aggression can wipe out the patient’s memory of an event or traumatic experience, resulting in the patient showing instead of knowing. Clinical material will illustrate this phenomenon in relation to Freud’s concept of repetition compulsion and how the forensic patient, unable to think about what they have done, may act out, or rather, re-enact the experience. I refer to this as the tabula rasa defence which is literally, an obliterative re-enactment. This will be explored further using Winnicott’s ideas about fear of breakdown, including how keeping memory locked away in the unconscious acts as a means of protecting against a breakdown which has, as Winnicott suggests “already happened”.