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Historical [[truth]], as Sigmund [[Freud ]] conceived it, can be defined as a lost piece of the [[subject]]'s lived [[experience ]] that is accessible only through the [[work ]] of [[construction]]. The term historical here refers to origins, which explains why historical truth can be presented as a kernel of truth in [[formations ]] as diverse as legends, [[religions]], or [[delusions]].

The problem of historical truth can be theorized in a [[number ]] of ways in the field of [[history]]. The fundamental [[split ]] between the approach of the historian and that of the [[psychoanalyst ]] has to do with their respective ways of conceiving [[temporality]]. For the psychoanalyst, [[time ]] is blended: [[Present ]] and [[past ]] live together in [[repetition ]] and in the reliving that is a part of the [[transference]]. For the historian, by contrast, the past is [[separate ]] from the present, and even if there are causal [[links ]] between the two, their [[order ]] of succession remains immutable, since what endows an [[event ]] with its [[historicity ]] is precisely the fact that it occurred at one time that will never be repeated. Thus, seen from a [[psychoanalytic ]] perspective, historical truth is not the [[material ]] truth of an event, even if Freud may have believed this early on his works, but rather the truth of a history as it appears through an event. It is the truth of a sequence and not of a point; it requires the reconstruction of phases leading up to the [[constitution ]] of an element that can [[claim ]] the status of truth. Accordingly, historical truth is to be distinguished from material truth—literal truth that is presumed to have a direct [[referent ]] in [[reality]].

Although Freud spoke a great deal [[about ]] truth throughout his work, it was toward the end of his work that he essentially developed the [[notion ]] of historical truth, mainly in connection with "Constructions in [[Analysis]]" (1937d) and "[[Moses ]] and [[Monotheism]]: [[Three ]] Essays" (1939a [1934-38]).

The [[idea ]] of historical truth is very important in [[psychoanalysis]], because it makes it possible to take off from a realistic conception of the [[analytic ]] [[process]], as it was present in Freud's early [[theory ]] centered around [[trauma]], and move toward a more refined, perspective-based conception where the main focus is on the notion of construction and the process of an indirect confirmation of the construction by the [[analysand]], who can thus give it a truth [[value]], even in the [[absence ]] of a recovered [[memory]]. However, the notion of truth remains dependent upon a [[feeling ]] of [[certainty]]. It is not [[formal]], in the [[sense ]] that it could be considered to be the same [[thing ]] as exactness.

Two factors must be taken into account here. The first relates to what Freud called [[intellectual ]] feeling and concerns the degree of conviction brought by an isolated and [[repressed ]] piece of truth that returns. This "kernel of truth," a veritable fossil, is the basis for the irresistible claim to truth contained in [[religious ]] [[faith ]] as well as in delusional beliefs. This is a "historical" truth, that is, the truth of both the fossil kernel and the sense [[The Subject|the subject ]] may have of the process of [[distortion ]] that is attached to it. In [[Moses and Monotheism]]: Three Essays, Freud wrote: "An idea such as this has a compulsive [[character]]: it must be believed. To the extent to which it is distorted, it may be described as a [[delusion]]; in so far as it brings a [[return ]] of the past, it must be called the truth" (p. 130). "Historical truth" is thus revealed to be distinct from historical exactitude when the latter does not involve this passage by way of the repressed, and the truth is not implicit in historical narration, for this is, on the contrary, the site of compromise and dissimulation, which this time are [[conscious]]. However, as Freud wrote in Moses and Monotheism: "In its implications the distortion of a [[text ]] resembles a [[murder]]: the difficulty is not in perpetrating the deed, but in getting rid of its traces" (p. 43); the only possibility is thus to follow these guiding fossils (Leitfossil) that open a pathway toward truth through these distortions.

In "Constructions in Analysis," the [[dialectic ]] concerning truth is even more subtle, since an erroneous construction can lead the [[patient ]] to [[remember ]] a fragment of his or her historical truth. In this [[case]], said Freud, citing [[Shakespeare]]'s Polonius, it is as if "our bait of falsehood had taken a carp of truth" (p. 262). The work of [[interpretation ]] thus entails freeing the fossil from the aggregate of current material encasing it and bringing it back to the point in the past to which it belongs.

See also: Amnesia; Anticipatory [[ideas]]; Construction de l'espace [[analytique]], La; "Constructions in Analysis"; [[Myth ]] of origins; [[Paranoia]]; Truth.[[Bibliography]]