Memory and Psychoanalysis: A New Look at Infantile Amnesia and Transference

Abstract

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. 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. 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. 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. © 1995, The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. All rights reserved.