Eric couldn't remember anything from his childhood until he went for psychotherapy to treat his anxiety disorder. After just a few sessions, Eric started remembering painful incidents in his childhood during which he was beaten and made to feel ashamed. Eric's difficulty in remembering his childhood was probably because of:

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Eric's difficulty in remembering his childhood was likely due to motivated forgetting, which is the unconscious process of forgetting memories that are too painful or traumatic to remember. This is supported by the fact that Eric's memories resurfaced when he began psychotherapy to treat his anxiety disorder, suggesting that he had been actively repressing these memories. Retroactive interference and proactive interference involve interference with the retrieval of established memories, whereas encoding failure would involve the failure to encode memories in the first place.

Eric Couldn't Remember Anything from His Childhood Until He Went