Symptom, Screen Memory, and Dream The Complexity of Mental Representation and Disguise

• Published in: The Psychoanalytic study of the child Vol. 58; no. 1; pp. 246 - 266
• Main Authors: Battin, Delia, Mahon, Eugene
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Routledge 01.01.2003; Yale University Press
• Subjects: Adult; Depression - psychology; Depression - therapy; Dreams; Female; Humans; Psychoanalytic Interpretation; Psychoanalytic Therapy - methods
• ISSN: 0079-7308; 2474-3356
• DOI: 10.1080/00797308.2003.11800722

The relationship between screen memory, symptom and dream is not immediately obvious. All three are mental products to be sure and therefore they must have complex connections with each other, however far apart their genetic origin may be, however discreet they may seem from each other in the mind's archival filing system. A case is presented in which "the content" of a screen memory and a symptom and a subsequent dream shared certain similarities. The "content" became the subject matter of elaborate free associative explication in the context of analytic process and transference neurosis. As all three products began to "converse" with each other in the psychological fugue known as analytic process, the seamlessness of the human mind and its complemental series of complexities unscreened itself, as illusion became its own mirror rather than an exercise in perpetual self deception. A screen memory, a symptom, and a dream were show to be only façades of an architectural complexity they hinted at to be sure, but without analysis were unable to reveal.