Martin Mayman's early memories technique: Bridging the gap between personality assessment and psychotherapy

In this article, we describe Martin Mayman's approach to early childhood me mories as a projective technique, beginning with his scientific interest in learning theory, coupled with his, interest in ego psychology and object r elations theory. We describe Mayman's contributions to the use of the early memories technique to inform the psychotherapy process, lying assessment c losely to psychotherapy and making assessment more useful in treatment. In this article, we describe a representative sample of research studies that demonstrate the reliability and validity of early memories, followed by cas e examples in which the early memories informed the therapy process. includ ing issues of transference and countertransference.