Feeling the Words

How are the implicit memory and the unrepressed unconscious related?

Feeling the Words incorporates a thorough review of essential psychoanalytic concepts, a clear critical history of analytical ideas and an assessment of the contribution neuroscience has to offer.

Mauro Mancia uses numerous detailed clinical examples to demonstrate how insights from neuroscience and infant development research can change how the analyst responds to his or her patient. Major topics such as the transference, the Oedipus complex, the interpretation of dreams and the nature of mental pain are reviewed and refined in the light of these recent developments. The book is divided into three parts, covering:

Memory and the unconscious

The dream: between neuroscience and psychoanalysis

Further reflections on narcissism and other clinical topics


Feeling the Words offers an original perspective on the connection between memory and the unconscious. It will be welcomed by all psychoanalysts interested in investigating new ways of working with patients.

Cooper, Foreword. Introduction: Beyond Freud: The Twilight of Oedipus and the Neurosciences' Contribution to Psychoanalysis. Part I: Memory and the Unconscious. Memory Between Neuroscience and Psychoanalysis. Implicit Memory and Unrepressed Unconscious: Their Role in Creativity, in the Transference and in Dreams. Therapeutic (F)actors in the Theater of Memory. Part II: The Dream: Between Neuroscience and Psychoanalysis. The Labyrinth of the Night: Biology, Poetry and Theology. The Dream: Between Neuroscience and Psychoanalysis. The Dream: A Window Onto the Transference. Part III: Further Reflections on Narcissism and Other Clinical Topics. Further Historical/Critical and Clinical Reflections on Narcissism. Being with the Patient: Four Clinical Cases. Reality and Metaphor in the Analytical Relation: Transference Love. Sexuality, Such Sweet Folly. On Happiness. On Mental Pain.