RETROSPECTIVE REPORTING OF CHILDHOOD ADVERSITY - ISSUES IN ASSESSING LONG-TERM RECALL

Much evidence for associations between adverse experiences in childhoo d and personality disorder in adult life comes from retrospective acco unts, This raises important questions over the reliability and validit y of long-term recall, The strengths and limitations of different meth ods for assessing the accuracy and stability of retrospective reports are discussed, Evidence from cognitive psychology on memory and memory processes, and on the phenomenon of infantile amnesia, provides impor tant background for assessing issues more specific to recall in studie s of risk for psychopathology. Here, topics of particular concern incl ude: memory for traumatic early experience; the effects of mood state and symptomatology on recall; recovered or false memories; and the imp lications of mental representations of early experience for understand ing psychopathology, Current evidence suggests that while adequately r eliable accounts of many early experiences can be gained using appropr iate techniques, further methodological studies are needed, and invest igations using retrospective methods would be wise to include corrobor ative evidence whenever feasible.