Translated by James Strachey, SE III p301-322

Published bilingual at www.Freud2Lacan.net /Homepage (Screen Memories (Über Deckerinnerungen))

Commentary :

An unknown autobiographical fragment by Freud : 1946 : Siegfried Bernfeld, See this site /5 Other Authors A-Z (Bernfeld or Index of Authors’ texts)

Citation

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-Letter from Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess of 14th November 1897 : known as Letter 75, see this site /3 Sigmund Freud (18971114), Quote from p279 of Masson’s translation : Before the vacation trip I told you that the most important patient for me was myself ; and then, after I came back from vacation, my self-analysis, of which there was at the time no sign, suddenly started. : Footnote [1] See, however Introduction : 1954 : Ernst Kris : p30 of The Origins of Psychoanalysis op. cit.

P30 of Introduction to ‘The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess 1887-1904’ : 1950 : Ernst Kris, see this site /5 Authors A-Z (Kris or Index of Authors’ texts)

We see from the letters that insight into the structure of the Oedipus complex, and thus into the central problem of psycho-analysis, was made possible by Freud’s self-analysis, which he started in the summer of 1897 during his stay at Aussee. (This is stated in Letter 75 – Letter to Wilhelm Fliess : 14th November 1897 (Letter 75) : Sigmund Freud, see this site /3 Sigmund Freud (18971114)) and contradicted in Letter 65 – 12th June 1897)

The reader of Freud’s works is already familiar with some of the stages of his self-analysis. In his pre-analytic period he had several times conducted experiments on himself , and had quoted the results of self-observations. (For example, “Über Coca” (1884e, page 84 . Published On Coca : 1885 : Sigmund Freud, Download bilingual, translated by Steven A. Edminster (1963), at www.Freud2Lacan.com /homepage (Freud: On Coca. (Über Coca.)); “Zur Auffassung der Aphsien” 1891b, page 63, published Aphasia : 1891 : Sigmund Freud, Available http://www.sigmundfreud.net/on-aphasia-pdf-ebook.jsp Aphasia 1888 & 1891, Complete : Available at www.Freud2Lacan.com / Freud/Philosophy (3. Bilingual of Freud’s book On Aphasia (Zur Auffassung der Aphasien)) (a Passage to which Otto Iskower drew attention in the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, vol XX, 1939, page 340); Über die Bernhardt’sche Sensibilitässtörung am oberschenkel 1895e, page 491. See also Bernfeld (1946) – (An unknown autobiographical fragment by Freud : 1946 : Siegfried Bernfeld, See this site /5 Other Authors A-Z (Bernfeld or Index of Authors (Bernfeld)). With his self-analysis, taken in conjunction with his psychological writings, this practice now assumes a new significance. We can regard as the first evidence of this his paper on “Screen Memories”, which has been identified by Bernfeld (op. cit. 1946) as being essentially autobiographical.

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-James Strachey’s Footnote 1, p291 of On the Psychical Mechanism of Forgetfulness : 1898b : Sigmund Freud, see this site 3 Sigmund Freud (18980101 or Index of Sigmund Freud’s texts)

Freud, SE III p290, But the artist’s name escaped me and I could not recall it. I exerted my powers of recollection, made all the details of the day I spent in Orvieto pass before my memory and convinced myself that not the smallest part of it had been obliterated or become indistinct.

On the contrary, I was able to conjure up the pictures with greater sensory vividness than is usual with me.[1] I saw before my eyes with especial sharpness the artist’s self-portrait—with a serious face and folded hands— which he has put in a corner of one of the pictures, next to the portrait of his predecessor in the work, Fra Angelico da Fiesole; but the artist’s name, ordinarily so familiar to me, remained obstinately in hiding, nor could my travelling companion help me out.

[1] James Strachey’s footnote, Freud is here drawing attention to an observation that, when a memory is repressed, there often emerges into consciousness with unusual vividness an image of something which is not the repressed memory itself but which, though unimportant and irrelevant, is closely related to the repressed memory. Another instance of this is mentioned at the end of the present paper (p.297 below), and a similar one in the paper on ‘Screen Memories’ (1899a)* which follows this one (p. 312 f).

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