Introduction

According to Adler’s Individual Psychology perspective, the meaning of individual behaviour coincides with their desire for either success or superiority (Adler, 1958). This desire for either success or superiority manifests in a client’s earliest recollections, powerful memories that have shaped and guided a client’s lifestyle. According to Mosak and Di Pietro (2006) early recollections (ERs) are narratives a client unfolds to a counsellor regarding specific events in the individual’s youth before 10 years of age—the age at which a child develops the ability to record events in chronological sequence.  These recollections have a projective value, which allows a therapist to predict an individual’s style of life, their behaviours, and their reactions to particular events relative to their personalities. The intent of this essay is to outline the usefulness of ER therapy. To begin, an examination of the uses of early recollections is pertinent in order to understand its therapeutic advantages. Secondly, it will be important to describe the methods used to administer ER therapy. Thirdly, a discussion of ERs research reliability and validity is a great way to review the research aims and pitfalls of this type of cognitive therapy. Following that, an example of ER therapy will be discussed, particularly its use in predicting an individual’s vocational goals.

Uses and Advantages of Early Recollection Therapy

Early recollections provide a therapist an ability to predict a client’s life style in the future based on their earliest recollections, a guiding tapestry of memories that shape the way a client thinks and responds to events (Clark, 1998). Life style can be understood as the individual’s attitudinal set, that is, the person’s collection of convictions about life (Binder & Smokler, 1980). By examining a client’s earliest recollections, a therapist can assess a client’s style of life and thereby their personality as well. There are several advantages to conducting ERs therapy: counseling relationship, counseling integration, response distortion, and therapeutic progress.

Counseling Relationship

Early Recollections is an interesting therapeutic strategy because of its open-ended procedural approach that involves the client more so than the therapist. It has the ability to enhance the relationship between therapist and client in order to develop trust and relaxation. (Clark, 2002) Essentially, the task of unraveling a client’s earliest memories turns into a very engrossing task. According to Janoe & Janoe (1979) and Korner (1965), fairly ubiquitous and excessive childhood recall envelops individuals to the point where they become absorbed in their own self-narratives. The result is reduced client defensiveness due to the unobtrusive nature of ERs therapy. According to Clark (1998), ERs serves as an immediate counseling activity that allows resistant clients, children and other individuals to spontaneously disclose their earliest recollections. Furthermore, a counselor is able to relate with clients by offering their own earliest recollections as an example of the way the procedure is done. In addition, the client can easily perform the task of ERs due to its lack of meticulous procedural steps (Mosak & Di Pietro, 2006).

Counseling Integration

According to Hood and Johnson (2002) and Pepinsky (1947), the projective techniques of ERs may be integrated into the counseling process without the client perceiving the procedure as an interruption. There is a strong connection between the client’s ERs and the counseling process as there are essentially engaging in a collaborative effort to find a resolve (Korner, 1965).

Response Distortion

As a projective technique, clients are very interested in unraveling their ERs through symbolism and are intent to speak their ERs. Clients are unaware of the hidden meanings that exist within their ERs and are uninhibited to reveal details about their earliest memories (Adler, 1958). A client’s ERs are filtered through their personalities and are unconsciously expressed, which suggests that clients are less likely to offer socially acceptable responses that fit to their pre-determined self-images (Clark, 2002; Mosak & Di Pietro, 2006; Adler, 1958). Unlike questionnaires or self-report scales, clients tend to evoke more defensive response and may even fake or lie in order to maintain their façade (Clark 2002).

Therapeutic Progress

Therapeutic progress may be somewhat complicated and time-consuming, however, enduring client perspectives may strengthen therapeutic planning and speed up the counseling process (Clark 2002). Binder and Smokler (1980) found that clarifying significant issues at the beginning of the counseling process is vital—it gives the counselor time to review more pertinent issues that may otherwise take many sessions to uncover, hence, the benefit of ERs. Progress can happen as early as the first appointment with the client because the counselor is able to rapidly determine, through corroboration or modification throughout the counseling process, initial hypotheses in order to develop a therapeutic focus (Mosak & Di Pietro, 2006; Clark, 2002).

ER Therapy Administration

ER therapy is administered in a nonjudgmental and supportive climate that nurtures an emotionally receptive client. ER therapy must follow under transcribed format of a therapist’s choosing, but must remain consistent, clear and specific. The reason for this specificity is to ensure that no confusion is made between earliest recollections and other imperative issues the client may have. According to Clark (2002) early recollections concerning distinct events must be discriminated against those that are simply “reports of experiences that have been told to a person or those occurring over an extended period of time” (Clark, 2002: p. 92). More examples and details will be uncovered momentarily regarding the distinction between memory reporting and early recollections.

Establishing Rapport

The administration of early recollections therapy begins with establishing rapport. Counselors often utilize ER therapy as part of their initial counseling process (Borden, 1982). Before any ER transcription can be done, it is significant to discuss the purposes and procedures of a counselor’s evaluation because it would allow the counselor to review their evaluative procedures with their client. Establishing rapport is a significant advantage because it allows a therapist to engage the client in a one-to-one relationship full of empathy and exchange evaluations of early recollections and other administration appraisals—this enhances the quality of counseling (Borden, 1982). Furthermore, establishing rapport ensures the accuracy of early recollections interpretation (Clark, 2002).

Transcription Process

Once rapport is established and the direction of the counseling sessions is made clear, the next critical administrative stage of ER therapy concerns with the transcription process. The transcribing process entails a complete verbatim record of written down information concerning the exact way and word choice used by the client to describe his/her earliest recollections (Clark, 2002).  The reason for verbatim record-keeping is to ensure maximum accuracy during the interpretation process. The therapist may use shorthand to quickly document what his/her client reveals about their ERs (Clark, 2002). Once the client has finished their recollection, they may add extraneous and often tangential add-ons to their recollections, which will prove very helpful in the overall interpretation of that ER. Clients may proceed with this tangential information, but it should never be considered as an invitation to the therapist to ask questions about their ERs—the client may begin to prematurely process its meaning (Mosak & Di Pietro, 2006).

Early Recollections Versus Memory Report

According to Mosak (1958), distinguishing between an early recollection and a memory report is vital to scoring and interpretive purposes. Early recollections represents a projective value, it can be analyzed thoroughly and scored to provide analytical data that may describe the personality characteristics of a client (Mosak & Di Pietro, 2006). A report is either a single or repeated event that exists outside of the recollection of a client (Clark, 2002); for example, a client who states, “I remember going out for ice cream with my parents every Sunday”. These reports come with only vague information. Hence, the underlining difference is whether the client actually remembers or if the client knows. To remember an event entails “an awareness of the experience within one’s personal history” (Clark, 2002; p. 95). Knowing involves knowledge attained from beyond the awareness of the client. Although reports may contain value for understanding a client, it is not a critical criteria nor does it possess projective data that may assist in the interpretation of a client’s ERs.

How Many ERs Are Enough?

There is fervor in the practice of ER therapy regarding the number of ERs that should be elicited from a client. This entirely depends on the ability of the clients to recall their own ERs, otherwise it may prove to be extremely complicated; some clients may remember two or three ERs in one session while others can hardly remember (Clark, 2002). Therapists that keep nagging clients about remembering their earliest recollections risk turning their positive relationship into a negative one. The pursuit for the client’s ERs may reach a point where the client is unable to express or has no desire to express. In these scenarios, the best solution is patience.

Created Versus Real Recollections

There are certain situations where the client may show uncertainty about his/her feelings, reluctantly reveal recollections, or that there is a difficult line of interpretation concerning real versus created memories (Hafner & Fakouri, 1984). Firstly, if a client is uncertain about his/her feelings due to an inability to express follow-up questions that concern a vivid part of their ER, it is recommended to tell the client to consider waiting for the opportune moment for that expression. If the client is experiencing a grave inability to express the details of their ERs, the therapist must use reflective counseling techniques that encourage clients to share their feelings (Clark, 2002; Mosak & Di Pietro, 2006; Hafner & Fakouri, 1984). If a client continues persistently, it is recommended to note it and conclude the inquiry about that particular memory (Clark, 2002). Secondly, if a client is reluctant to share any information concerning their ERs, according to Clark (2002), “therapeutically it is more productive to acknowledge this claim than to intrusively probe for a reflection” (p. 97). Lastly, it is very well documented in counseling psychology that an individual’s memory may be a part of fabrication process than more precise actual recording of the facts (Adler, 1964; Papanek, 1972; Schrecker, 1973). Despite these created or significantly altered memories, they should not be seen as useless for they reflect a person’s style of life (Mosak, 1958). In a study involving clinical and graduate students, Buchanan, Kern, and Bell-Dumas (1991) analyzed three variables: themes, affect and an active/passive dimension in their subject’s either actual ERs or created memories. They found that a significant percentage of their subjects showed variable thematic aspects of their actual or created memories. According to this study, created memories served as a therapeutic alternative.

Administering ER therapy is a highly sensitive and incredibly time-consuming task that relies significantly on establishing rapport, ensuring a solid relationship with a client, differentiating real versus created memories, distinguishing memory reporting and ER, and many other aforementioned factors, ER therapy is very client-centered.

ER Reliability and Validity

According to the American Psychological Association (1999), psychological instrumentation and assessment must meet two criteria: reliability and the instrumentation must be valid. For ER therapy to act as a projective technique, it must be reliable and valid. Reliability means the ability of an assessment to reach the same conclusions repeatedly, or tests to repeat the same results consistently. When a study is said to have valid results, it means that that study was able to conclusively, through reliable data and valid instrumentation, reach a strong result.

Reliability in ER therapy concerns the extent to which early childhood memories retain their consistencies over time as well as the attitudes that represent those memories (Mosak & Di Pietro, 2006). Prior to any therapeutic intervention, a person’s earliest memories must be determined reliable based on two different alternate ways of describing the same ER. In a study concerning the reliability of ERs, Winthrop (1958) collected the ERs of sixty-nine subjects and found that 68% of them recalled their ERs twice at eight-week intervals. Another study by Hedvig (1963) found that the stability of ERs overtime are stable and maintain their central themes, signifying parallel views of self, others, and the world, as well as people’s ethical beliefs. In a study concerning the affect of LSD on an individual’s ability to recall their earliest memories before and after, Langs (1967) found that individuals with stable and “relatively stable ego organization” (p. 182) are capable of recalling their ERs poignantly even under the influence of LSD. These studies suggest that ERs function as a terrific projective technique, are unaffected by environmental influences, and function as wonderful tools for psychopathological diagnosis.

ERs retain their validity as well. There is a wealth of research to indicate that the results from ERs relate to clinical data found in a patient’s psychotherapy. One of the strengths of ER therapy is its ability to maintain low face validity. This means that clients are hardly aware of their easy expressions of their own ERs. This is advantageous simply because it lends ER therapy significant credibility for its innocuousness. Lieberman (1957) found that ER therapy, as a projective technique, produces relatively the same information, although less detailed, than a whole test battery of other measurements such as the ones Lieberman (1957) used: Wechsler-Bellevue Intelligence Scale, Rorschach, Bender-Gestalt Test, and House-Tree-Person Projective Technique. This suggests that ER therapy retains a significant degree of validity. It is also a less expensive procedure compared to these aforementioned tests and a client’s ERs can be gathered much quicker than the results of the tests.

ER therapy is clinically useful in several ways: it can provide accurate personality assessments; it can act as a projective technique to situate an individual’s earliest recollections with their current attitude and predict future responses to certain events. ER therapy is much less expensive than those studies conducted by Lieberman (1957) and yet yield relatively the same results, except without the extensive detail of those standardized tests from Lieberman’s (1957) study. Furthermore, ER therapy is highly reliable and unaffected by environmental factors. Themes that resonate in ERs are stable and consistent over time and differing conditions.

Example Use of ER Therapy: Vocational Goals

ER therapy is a useful for predicting and advising clients on a potential life style fulfilling career that may significantly better a client’s experience with the world. Individuals who enjoy their work are those who have personalities that matches the job requirement. Essentially, a client’s style of life certainly influences their vocational choice. According to Orgler’s (1963) study of ERs and vocational choice, a successful vocational career must be synchronous with an individual’s earliest recollections. For example, Alfred Adler’s daughter Alexandra Adler (1959) insisted that individuals can still perform their work in an environment that does not aggravate their style of life.

Support for ER therapy in the career counseling is tremendous. Studies have shown that the interpretations of people’s recollections reveal parallels to their choice of work (Hafner & Fakouri, 1984; Clark, 2002; Adler, 1958; Mosak & Di Pietro, 2006). ER therapy can indicate the vocations oneshould either avoid or pursue, as they are closely considered personality assessments with strong projective value. For example, Hafner and Fakouri (1984) found that the ERs of accounting students showed significant internal control, attention to detail, and often refrained from discussing people or animals compared to students in other majors. Their study also found that the ERs of psychology students concerned with frequent episodes of fear inducing trauma that either required thorough explanation or perhaps a cure, much like Alfred Adler’s own ER interpretation. For education students, their ERs revealed several references to schools or teachers. Hafner and Fakouri (1984) also found that the ERs nursing students and those in similar disciplines indicated in their ERs a desire for more mastery and have more energetic physical movements. ERs can be used to screen out those who are unqualified for potential careers like emergency medical technicians (EMTs). According to Vettor and Kosinski (2000), ERs have a tremendous use value for predicting the kinds of personalities that may result in quicker burnout EMTs.

ER therapy should not be considered lightly among one of the most prominent methods of doing research and counseling. As a great projective tool, ERs can provide the blueprint that clients may be interested in, particularly concerning a direction in life since people often describe their life styles based on the work they do. In this way, ERs is a terrific resource that must not go unnoticed.

Conclusion

Adler’s Individual Psychology approach has had a significant influence in therapy. Particularly, early recollections therapy has been considered one of the most interesting counseling strategies today. Although the procedure is laborious (i.e. administration), however, the interpretation of a client’s ERs can reveal a great deal about their personalities. According to Adler (1984), earliest recollections form the facet of a person’s style of life. In this way, early recollection therapy has a strong projective value.

ER therapy has a number of advantages such as a strong client-counselor relationship that would certainly reduce client defensiveness, the counselor is highly integrated throughout the process, there is little response distortion because clients are not aware of the meanings and interpretations behind their ERs, therapeutic progress is inevitable as clients share their information and the counselor pinpoint the relevancies of those in relation to their current style of life.

Administering ER therapy is complicated by a number of hurdles throughout the interpretation process. Often, an incredibly attuned counselor can make significantly difficult decisions that concern real versus created recollections and even distinguishing memory reporting from actual recollection. Throughout ER therapy, the counselor must establish rapport, transcribe verbatim the exact recollections of the client (short-hand is often necessary to keep up with the client), and making judgments on the concerns already aforementioned.

Following that line of reasoning, it was important to describe the reliability and validity of ERs. Researchers are skeptical about the reliability of ERs. In the aforementioned studies, ERs kept their same themes and references to things and individuals even with the influence of LSD (Langs, 1967). Furthermore, the results of ER interpretation yielded relatively, but not as detailed, results as those conducted in standardized procedures using a whole battery of tests (Lieberman, 1957). These studies lend significant credibility to ER counseling.

Lastly, an example of ER counseling was described—career guidance. Adler believed that a significant aspect of one’s style of life was work. ER therapy can have a significant impact when it comes to individuals and their vocational goals. ER therapy can be administered to those who are unsure about their vocational goals and thus may clarify a great deal of things that a client may not have been aware of at all.

Essentially, ER therapy is an excellent resource that counselors can use to assess personality traits, uncover hidden memories and their meanings, help clients reflect on their difficult histories, and guide individuals to vocations that suit their styles of life.

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