Kristen Weede Alexander

A Prospective Study of Memory for Child Sexual Abuse New Findings Relevant to the Repressed-Memory Controversy

Previous research indicates that many adults (nearly 40%) fail to report their own documented child sexual abuse (CSA) when asked about their childhood experiences. These controversial results could reflect lack of consciously accessible recollection, thus bolstering claims that traumatic memories may be repressed. In the present study, 175 individuals with documented CSA histories were interviewed regarding their childhood trauma. Unlike in previous studies, the majority of participants (81%) in our study reported the documented abuse. Older age when the abuse ended, maternal support following disclosure of the abuse, and more severe abuse were associated with an increased likelihood of disclosure. Ethnicity and dissociation also played a role. Failure to report CSA should not necessarily be interpreted as evidence that the abuse is inaccessible to memory, although inaccessibility or forgetting cannot be ruled out in a subset of cases.

Individual Differences in Emotional Memory: Adult Attachment and Long-Term Memory for Child Sexual Abuse

In the present study, attachment-related differences in long-term memory for a highly emotional life event, child sexual abuse (CSA), were investigated. Participants were 102 documented CSA victims whose cases were referred for prosecution approximately 14 years earlier. Consistent with the proposal that avoidant individuals defensively regulate the processing of potentially distressing information (Bowlby, 1980), attachment avoidance was negatively associated with memory for particularly severe CSA incidents. This finding was not mediated by the extent to which participants reported talking about the abuse after it occurred, although postabuse discussion did enhance long-term memory. In addition, accuracy was positively associated with maternal support following the abuse and extent of CSA-related legal involvement. Attachment anxiety was unrelated to memory accuracy, regardless of abuse severity. Implications of the findings for theories of avoidant defensive strategies and emotional memory are discussed.

Theoretical advances in understanding children’s memory for distressing events: The role of attachment

Abstract There has been considerable debate regarding the effects of stress on children’s memory, and a growing body of research has developed to address this issue. An important direction in this line of research concerns sources of individual differences in children’s memory for distressing experiences. The focus of this review is on one such source, namely attachment and how attachment theory may provide a theoretical framework from which to understand the association between stress and memory in children. We first provide an overview of research concerning children’s coping with and memory for stressful events. We then briefly describe the main tenets of attachment theory, emphasizing those tenets with implications for children’s reactions to and memory for distressing experiences. Next, we review empirical evidence and discuss theoretical implications of attachment’s potential influence on children’s encoding, retention, and retrieval of stressful events. Throughout this review, we discuss important questions and directions for future research, and we highlight theoretical and applied implications regarding relations among emotion, attachment, and memory in childhood.

What can subjective forgetting tell us about memory for childhood trauma

In the present study, we examined the prevalence and predictors of subjective forgetting (i.e., self-reported amnesia) of child sexual abuse (CSA). Adults who, as children, were involved as victims in legal prosecutions were questioned about their CSA experiences, which had been documented in the 1980s, and about lost and recovered memory of those experiences. Males and individuals who experienced more severe abuse were more likely to report forgetting. The majority of individuals attributed their forgetting to active attempts to avoid thinking about the abuse. In contrast, when predictors of subjective forgetting were used to predict objective memory of abuse, more severe abuse and more extended legal involvement were associated with fewer memory errors. The differences between subjective and objective memory underscore the risks of using subjective measures to assess lost memory of abuse.