Different forms of childhood abuse and memory.
Recently a heated controversy emerged regarding recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse, but the prevalence and nature of these memories as well as the relationship between a history of child abuse and childhood memory generally have received limited empirical examination. This study (N = 429 nonclinical participants) found that similar proportions of those reporting histories of sexual, emotional, and physical abuse reported that they had periods without memory for their abuse (19.8%, 11.5%, and 14.9%, respectively). These participants, however, appeared to be referring to both a lack of conscious access to their abuse memories as well as the intentional avoidance of the memories for some period. There was a great deal of variance found in the reported quality of general childhood memory, but this was unrelated to reporting a history of child abuse. In addition, it appears to be normative to recover previously forgotten childhood events, and this too was found to be unrelated to history of child abuse.
Melchert
T P
TP
Department of Psychology, Texas Tech University, Lubbock 79409-2051, USA.
Parker
R L
RL
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002650:Child Abuse, Sexual / Q000523:psychology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D008875:Middle Aged; D012094:Repression, Psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013997:Time Factors