Citation

Lewis M. J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry 1995; 34(4): 405-417.

Affiliation

Child Study Center, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1995, American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, Publisher Lippincott Williams and Wilkins)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

7751254

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: This article reexamines the psychoanalytic concepts of infantile amnesia and transference in the light of certain findings derived from neurobiological research, information-processing theory, child development research, cognitive-developmental theory, and, more speculatively, evolutionary theory concerning memory. METHOD: Relevant developments from recent research in the neurosciences, and psychopathological phenomena in two psychiatric disorders--posttraumatic stress disorder and child abuse--in which memory changes are of critical importance, are first reviewed briefly. Four alternative hypotheses for infantile amnesia and three for transference are then derived from this review. RESULTS: The hypotheses discussed provide plausible alternative explanations for at least part of the phenomena classically subsumed in the psychoanalytic concepts of infantile amnesia and transference. CONCLUSIONS: Neurobiological, information-processing, developmental shifts, cognitive-developmental, and evolutionary findings and theories provide alternative hypotheses for infantile amnesia and transference that suggest a need for revisions and redefinitions for these two psychoanalytic concepts.

Language: en