therapist reveals
What can it be if you don’t remember your childhood
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Do we forget our childhood just because of trauma? Not necessarily, explains therapist Jeff Guenther.
A green meadow, the scent of summer and insects crawling on our skin: some of us remember scenes from our childhood as if they were only days ago, they play so clearly in our mind’s eye. Others can only look at these people with amazement: How is it even possible for them to remember something that happened so long ago?
When they try to recall their childhood, they lack these clear images. Was life as a child so bad that we suppressed everything? Or just dead boring? Neither, says therapist Jeff Guenther. Rather, the reason lies more in our attachment type.
Forgetting does not always come from trauma
Sigmund Freud was among the first to link childhood trauma to memory loss—or the suppression of memories. Several therapists followed him in the 90s, one of them Link between unexplained psychological symptoms and forgotten childhood abuse.
Among other things, the health magazine “Healthline” has dealt with the topic. Accordingly, while it is unlikely that someone would completely forget a traumatic event, but one Review Several studies on the subject have found that an experience of abuse can actually change the way the brain creates memories. Some would react with mental detachment, refuse to think about the trauma and repress the event – but this is not to be equated with forgetting.
The more times you have had an experience as a child, the more likely is to be remembered as an adult, for better or for worse. For example, those who were regularly abused by their own parents as a child are more likely to remember it.
But it could also be the other way around: Things that had little or no emotional impact on the child are more likely to be forgotten. While an adult may associate a visit to Paris with emotional moments such as a trip on the Seine or a visit to Notre-Dame, for a small child it may just be a day like any other – because every day is simply associated with new impressions .
“What is remembered is just as meaningful as what we forget”
Therapist Guenther adds another theory in a TikTok: The type of attachment would also affect our memory. What is meant by this is a concept that emerged in the 1960s, continued to develop and is still recognized by psychologists today. Accordingly, there are four different types of binding:
- Insecure-avoidant attachment: These people fail to build long-term relationships with others because they are unable to allow physical and emotional closeness (in short: they suffer from attachment anxiety). The reason could be, for example, an emotionally distanced upbringing of the parents.
- Secure Binding: Individuals with this attachment style are able to develop stable, loving relationships with others. They trust, love and, in turn, can accept love.
- Insecure-ambivalent attachment: These people lack security because as children they could not understand their caregivers or were uncertain about what to expect from the person.
- Anxious Disorganized Attachment: Those with this attachment style have tremendous difficulty trusting others. Childhood trauma, neglect and abuse can be at the root of this. These people live in ambivalence: on the one hand they are extremely afraid of commitment, on the other hand they crave it.
“Most of my patients with avoidant attachment styles have few memories of their childhood,” Guenther reveals on TikTok, “especially the memories involving emotional support.” This is a sign that these people have learned early in life to suppress their emotions in order to become independent.
Those with more of an anxious-disorganized attachment type, on the other hand, would remember almost everything. “They learned that if they were very alert to their parents’ words and behavior, their needs would be met.”
So if you would like to strangle another person from time to time because they are not showing any emotions or would prefer to silence another person when they are once again doing everything they can to get confirmation from us, according to the therapist, you should go ahead have one thing in mind: “It’s not their fault. They just live by the emotional blueprints their parents left them. We should put the blame where it really belongs – in the family.”
Sources used: healthline.com, huffingtonpost.co.uk, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, tiktok.com