Childhood Amnesia - History

History

Childhood amnesia was first formally reported by psychologist Caroline Miles in her article "A study of individual psychology", published in 1893 by the American Journal of Psychology. Five years later, Henri and Henri published a survey showing that most respondents’ earliest recollections occurred between the ages of two and four. In 1904 G. Stanley Hall noted the phenomenon in his book, Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education. In 1910, Sigmund Freud offered one of the most famous and controversial descriptions and explanations of childhood amnesia. Using psychoanalytic theory, he postulated that early life events were repressed due to their inappropriately sexual nature. He asserted that childhood or infantile amnesia was a precursor to the ‘hysterical amnesia,’ or repression, presented by his adult patients. Freud asked his patients to recall their earliest memories and found that they had difficulty remembering events from before the ages of 6-8. Freud coined the term "infantile" or "childhood amnesia" and discussed this phenomena in his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality.