[matthewrudy]

I've never heard this term "Character Amnesia" but its an analogue to my situation.

I can read and write (via pinyin) a large number of characters, but cannot recollect their shape in abstraction.

I think that's just because as a foreigner learning chinese in the modern world I've never had to learn this skill.

The difference between Recollection and Recognition.

[gurkendoktor]

Same here - and strangely enough, it's rarely a problem. Faking characters by using the correct radical and a random homophone base character works okay in a pinch.

But because I never write characters by hand, I have a really hard time reading handwritten notes, and that is a problem.