A man comes to analysis complaining of strange behavior and large gaps in his memory. “I ditched work today, took a train out to Montauk. I don’t know why. I’m not an impulsive person.” He discovers that there are two years of entries torn out of his diary, entries he does not remember making.

He has other complaints as well. He describes himself as shy—“If only I could meet someone now. I think my chances of that happening are somewhat diminished seeing that I can’t make eye contact with a woman that I don’t know.”—and needy—“Why do I fall in love with every woman I see who shows me the least bit of attention?” Nevertheless, he has spent a night walking and lying on the iced over Charles River in Boston with a woman he just met on that trip to Montauk, and was about to take her home to his apartment.

The man’s name is Joel Barish, and he has not actually entered an analytic consulting room (nor the Twilight Zone), but into a film written by Charlie Kaufman, which is close to the same thing. Continue reading Memory, Repression and Transference in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”