Young children deal with memories on perceptual level - images, smells, feelings. Adults deal with memories on a conceptual level - words. My wife is a clinica

Young children deal with memories on perceptual level - images, smells, feelings. Adults deal with memories on a conceptual level - words. My wife is a clinical psychologist specialized in the treatment of adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. For her dissertation, she developed a new treatment that takes these memory processes into account, and it is extraordinarily effective. Adults in this population are often totally unable to articulate and reason about their childhood experiences, acting out emotionally and developing secondary psychological issues. But it turns out they are able communicate and treat terrible deeply held beliefs through art. It is not my subject area and I can't explain it with justice, but just wanted to point out that your intuition is on the right track.