Abstract
As a consequence of reflections about the relevance of remembering and forgetting in psychiatric disorders, aspects of the psychopathology of the dimension of time in phenomenological psychiatry are represented. From the perspectives of research on consciousness, cognition and neurobiology of the temporal lobes with special emphasis on memory processes, the impact of time in depressive illness is investigated. Based on Freud's concept of "Todestrieb" (death-instinct) and "Nirvana-Prinzip" (nirvana-principle) with regard to the possible impact on a theory of forgetting--based on Michael Theunissens time-philosophical concept, which demonstrates coping of "dominance of time" i.e. intrusion of the past into the presence and the failure of these coping-processes in depressive patients--it is hypothesized, that "nirvana-energy" is a major constituent of processes for forgetting.