ABSTRACT
In 1937, Alfred Adler took issue with Freud by treating the content of the memory directly as a manifestation of the workings of the individual’s character and lifestyle. One might hypothesize, that self-categorization by gender and the consequent attribution of traits, values and style would have a significant effect on earliest memories as a reflection of that matrix of individual and social reality which constitutes personal experience. The primary question to be considered is how the difference in emphasis of thematic content of the Earliest Memories reported by the males and females in both samples are reflective of significant differences in psychological concerns. The phenomenological analysis of a relatively small sample of Earliest Memories strongly suggest that Earliest Memories serve a most valuable guide to the structure of experience.
