Psychogenic Amnesia

• Published in: Practical neurology Vol. 3; no. 5; pp. 292 - 299
• Main Authors: Pujol, Mireia, Kopelman, Michael D.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London BMJ Publishing Group Ltd 01.10.2003; BMJ Publishing Group LTD
• ISSN: 1474-7758; 1474-7766
• DOI: 10.1046/j.1474-7766.2003.05159.x

Following a marital crisis, Agatha Christie disappeared from her home in Berkshire on the evening of Friday 3 December 1926. The following morning, her abandoned Morris Cowley car was found near Newlands Corner, a local beauty spot five miles from Guilford, Surrey. An enormous search was carried out with the help of many volunteers. On the evening of Sunday 12 December, a woman resembling Agatha Christie was reported to be staying at a hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire, registered in the same name as that of her husband’s mistress. Two days later, Mrs Christie was formally identified by her husband. According to Jared Cade (1998) in Agatha Christie and the 11 missing days (Peter Owen Publishers, London) Mrs Christie told her husband that she had deliberately staged her disappearance in order to spite him. INTRODUCTION Amnesia is ‘an abnormal mental state in which memory and learning are affected out of all