There is a very popular opinion that personality is formed in childhood. And given that psychoanalysis pays special attention to the past, the role of childhood in a person’s life becomes seemingly fatal. But this is not so. Yes, the subject’s psyche is “assembled” at an early age: sexual identity, mental structure, the fate of drives, and finally, are determined. But this does not mean that that’s all. Even at the dawn of his psychoanalytic career, Freud noticed that memories can be changed. Having reached the age of puberty, the subject is able to “rewrite” his own history and literally “reconstruct” his life “in hindsight.” Adult childhood memories are by no means the same as the events that happened to a person in childhood. Autobiography is “refracted” through life experience. Moreover, it can be changed in the process of therapeutic intervention (or other interpersonal communication). Thus, Freud’s clients all “remembered” episodes of sexual abuse from childhood. Was Freud looking for confirmation of the veracity of his clients’ stories? No way. Guided by the information received that childhood memories can be changed, Freud derived two important principles: 1. The principle of psychic reality. It makes no difference whether an event happened to a person in reality or in fantasy. The outside world is generally of little interest to the founder of psychoanalysis. Internal, subjective reality has much greater weight. What is called psychic reality. So the analyst works with her in the office.2. The principle of aftereffect. Nothing happens in a person’s childhood that cannot be changed in memories. On his own or with the help of Another, the subject is capable of correcting, supplementing, canceling, or even inventing the events of his life retrospectively. This is funny, but the experiments of cognitive scientists can serve as an illustration of these discoveries. In the 90s, Elizabeth Loftus, an American cognitive psychologist, conducted a series of high-profile experiments that forever changed people's understanding of childhood memories. People were shown “photoshopped” photographs or fake video footage supposedly from their childhood, and the subjects confirmed the events depicted. They also enthusiastically supplemented them with detailed, clarifying stories. What does all this mean and what am I leading to? The events that happened to us in childhood are not a death sentence. Talk about how a person is formed in childhood (like “after three it’s too late”), and then at least the grass doesn’t grow, is not true. Our psyche is amazing, it has the ability to create and destroy throughout the subject's life, and not just during childhood. This means that it is never too late. Find, realize, change, correct. We are definitely capable of this. Subscribe to my public page on VK: https://vk.com/psychoanalysis_gently