Memory and psychoanalysis: a new look at infantile amnesia and transference.
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.


METHODS
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.
Lewis
M
M
Child Study Center, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000523:psychology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D011939:Mental Recall; D010553:Personality Development; D011573:Psychoanalytic Interpretation; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000523:psychology*; D014167:Transference, Psychology