Memories Of Positive Experiences In The Resolution Of Conflicts: Illustrated In A Case Of Hysteria

Clinical material from an analysis is used to illustrate the thesis that memories of positive experiences with significant figures of the past, like pathogenic memories, are displaced onto the analyst in the transference. It is suggested that such positive memories with their associated impulses, affects, and content become available and significantly operative in connection with and in response to interpretation and working through of pathogenic conflicts, especially in the transference. Memories of positive experiences appear to play a role in the resolution of conflicts and in the consequent analytic and therapeutic changes. Thus, just as there are repetitions of conflicted and pathogenic experiences, "negative repetitions," there are repetitions of positive experiences, "positive repetitions."