Originally published in 1990. This uniquely fascinating study approaches the problem of autobiography from two directions: first assessing theories of the self, consciousness and language developed by both Freud and Derrida; second through the reading of the autobiographical aspects of their writings. The book begins with looking at the issue of making sense of a life by means of representation, through autobiography, within the field of psychological phenomena - screen memories, mourning, obsession, hysteria, transference. Part 1 focuses on Freud's case histories and psychoanalysis being used to make a narrative of behaviour in language. Part two considers Freud's own Interpretation of Dreams and its autobiographical nature. Part 3 examines intellectual movements such as phenomenology, speed act theory and structuralism while Parts 4 and 5 turn to Derrida's use of autobiography as self-criticism and his debt to Freud.

Jane Marie Todd

Introduction Part 1: Autobiographics as Cure The Scene of Analysis 1. Obsession and Narrative Line 2. Fragments of Dora/Fragments of Freud Part 2: The Genealogy of Psychoanalysis Foundations 3. Screened Memories 4. The Interpretation of Dreams as Work of Mourning Part 3: The Self and the Sign 5. The Self and the Sign Part 4: Autobiographics as Reste: Derrida's Glas Glas and the Logic of the Unconscious 6. Thanatopraxis 7. Signature Part 5: The Fort/Da of Autobiography Psychoanalysis and the Postal Service 8. The Legacy of Beyond the Pleasure Principle 9. The Literary Framework. Conclusion