Some of the child 's primary experiences are positive and essential for the physical and mental growth of the child. Others may be traumatic: neglect, parental inadequacy or possible mental illness, physical or psychological violence, child abuse, even of a sexual nature, as well as the constant frustrations and disillusionments that lead the child to organize its defences and boost its phantasies. All these experiences can not be repressed because the hippocampus, necessary for the explicit memory, which is in turn indispensable for repression, is not mature in early infancy (R. Joseph, 1996; Siegel, 1999). On the contrary, the amygdala, which promotes the organization of the implicit memory, undergoes an earlier maturation (R. Joseph, 1996). Therefore, these early experiences, including those that concern the organization of language, can only be deposited in this latter form of memory and they contribute to the formation of an early unrepressed unconscious nucleus of the self (Mancia, 2003a, in press).
where is implicit memory stored in the brain
amygdala