Memory Research in Counseling: A Perspective and Some Hypotheses

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to outline a perspective for memory research in counseling. The primary audiences were graduate students and supervisors of students planning research plus counseling researchers interested in investigating memory issues in counseling. The importance of memory processes in counseling is briefly reviewed. The authors then present a broad perspective for memory research in counseling and levels of processing, and examine a series of hypotheses that are tied into current work in counseling. The overall heuristic of levels of processing is followed by an examination of the reformulations of the position and how these may result in testable counseling hypotheses. This type of thinking should be valuable to counselor educators as they conduct their own research and help their students plan research programs. In addition, there is potential for applications of memory research to training and practice.

The Effect of Predicate Matching on Perceived Understanding and Factual Recall

“…Although tenets of Grinder and Bandler's (1976) theory and model of NLP certainly may have relevance to counseling, the experiences of understanding, of feeling understood, and of feeling one understands in an actual therapy situation, although possibly a function of predicate matching and mismatching, are also likely to be a function of numerous other cognitive, affective, and other person variables. Cognitive studies (see Bourne, Dominowski, Loftus, & Healy, 1986), as well as studies and writing within our own field of counseling (e.g., Kraft, Glover, Dixon, Claiborn, & Ronning, 1985;Martin & Stelmaczonek, 1988), provide considerable evidence to suggest that understanding and recall are significantly influenced by the personal relevance of the material to be recalled, the affect associated with the material, the age of the individual doing the recalling, and the novelty of the material to be recalled. By design, this study attempted to control for these variables, thereby allowing for a fairly straightforward test of the NLP tenet regarding predicate matching.…”

Counselor Recall of Specific Details: Implications for Counseling and Counselor Training

“…A second benefit for counselors would be increased memory of the client's presentations. This could be a result of simple repetition of information during the organizational process or, as Kraft et al (1985) suggested, an increased depth of processing of the client's material. The reorganization of information from the client's typically unstructured presentation to the structured life-course grammar would entail a good deal of attention to semantic information; this would likely result in a greater depth of processing.…”

“…Many counselor characteristics have been studied to determine their effects on perceived credibility; however, the importance of the counselor's recall of details from the client's narrative has been largely, although not entirely, overlooked by researchers and clinicians. Kraft, Glover, Dixon, Claiborn, and Ronning (1985) recognized the importance of the counselor's recall; they wrote: "Counselors, of course, are expected to remember the salient elements of previous sessions with clients and to use information shared by clients during sessions to formulate various kinds of responses" (p.…”

“…(pp. 71-73, emphasis added) Thus, Kraft et al (1985) and Sullivan (1954) presented a case for the importance of recall of detail from the client's narrative. Furthermore, Sullivan made the point that mere recall of detail is not sufficient; there must be, as he described it, a "sorting out" (p. 73) process by which the interviewer recalls detail that is contextually relevant.…”

“…In other words, over time the counselor is involved in a process of inductive logic whereby he or she constructs a general picture (i.e., conceptualization, diagnosis, or interpretation) based on mastery of the detail. Kraft et al (1985) described this process of inductive logic as the formulation of various responses based on the recall of "salient elements of previous sessions" (p. 123). Spence (1984) made a very similar point when he described the process of therapeutic listening as ''a supreme example of inductive logic in which the principles behind the utterance must be inferred from multiple examples" (p. 58).…”