Quote:
I'd think that any visual/autobiographical memories from infancy would be more metaphorical than anything (images imposed from an adult mind, but expressing feeling from infancy). I think it would be useful to talk about those images that come to mind and what they mean for you. They may also reflect how you feel about your childhood, infancy or not.
|
I don't know much about how early it's technically possible to have explicit memories, but this brings up an interesting point I learned from IFS (internal family systems). In IFS you might ask a part you are working with to share memories related to why it feels, believes, or acts a certain way. It's noted that the memories shared by parts don't have to be explicit, episodic memories of actual events. They could be body or emotional memories, generalized memories (like an image of a parent yelling at you, but not attached to a specific incident), or they could even be symbolic memories. For example, if a part shares an image of being attacked, but you know that's never literally happened, it may mean the part is expressing that it felt "attacked" at some time in the past in a metaphorical sense. You deal with the memory exactly the same regardless of whether it is literal, specific, general, or symbolic.