How Often are Childhood Memories Repressed or Forgotten?
This is an extremely controversial subject. • There is general agreement among memory researchers that memories of events which happened before the age of 2 are never remembered into adulthood and cannot be recovered; memories before the age of 3 are rare and not particularly reliable. Claims by Ross et al (11) that 27% of their MPD patients recall abuse that occurred before 3 years of age are probably based on false memories. A claim by Rosanne (12) of abuse when she was 6 months old is certainly a false memory. Claims by some adults that they can remember being a just-fertilized ovum stuck in their mother’s fallopian tube are totally devoid of credibility. • Some survivor’s memories of childhood sexual abuse have always been present from the moment when they occurred until the present time. Unfortunately, with the publicity given to false memories, these survivors are sometimes ignored or belittled. • Some memories are simply forgotten. This includes almost all early experiences. It
