INTERPRETING

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS

Memory is the means by which people prepare for the future. Early Recollections are the images from life a person selects to carry with them to remind them about what to expect from others as well as what to expect from themselves. When collected and interpreted in a careful, scientific manner, early recollections provided by clients are a useful projective test to assess a person's Life Style. Early Recollections can be viewed individually or in combination to understand how a person moves through life. We find the following factors relevant:

1. Most Vivid: The most vivid part of the recollection usually reveals the centeral theme.

2 Feeling: The feeling associated with the memory reveals whether the movement is toward or away from the object of the recollection. Keep in mind that movement toward or away can represent positive or negative intention. Hostility, or movement "against" is a different type of "toward" movement than curiosity or happiness.

Often, a person will say there is no feeling associated with the recollection. This can indicate a tendency toward feeling avoidance or a state of resignation. The absence of feeling translates into the absence of movement in these themes in the person's life.

There are feelings that prevent movement. Feeling victimized puts people in the position of neither moving toward nor away from a theme, but suggests the worldview that "Life Is Horrible And There Is Nothing I Can Do About It."

3. Typology: Personality styles are referred to as "Types" in Adlerian parlance. For instance, the "getting" type will remember birthdays, Christmas, and other instance where they passively received something. The memories of the "superior" type will include themes of winning. Controllers and victims will reveal themes of struggle, although the controller will fight while the victim will acquiesce.

4. Positional Movement: The direction of movement in recollections can either be horizontal or vertical; we typically see more mistaken lifestyle beliefs when ER's contain vertical (either up or down) movement, compared to horizontal movement.

5. Degree of Activity: A high degree of activity in a series of Early Recollections may indicate an invidivual needs a high degree of activity to be happy. The degree of activity should be considered in the context of the direction of the movement. While getting up and doing something is better than waiting, a report that "I went over and beat him up" suggests a different line of movement that "I went over and offered to negotiate."

6. Gender in Recollections: Gender differences in recollections may reveal something about the way a person regards differences between the sexes.

7. Antithetical Modes of Apperception: Superlatives and other extreme language, including either-or, everyone-no one, always-never comments, suggest a tendency to use black and white thinking. The phrase "Except one time...." may be a goldmine to find a possible solution to a world of problems, or the serious problem in what is otherwise a happy and productive life.

8. Age: Recollections under the age of four or five tend to be one or two sentences in length. ER's are not elaborated until they come from age eight or nine. Age is generally irrelevant in interpretation of ER's, except as approximate developmental markers. Early memories may correspond to more core issues, but this is not always the case. Themes and resolutions can be found in ER's, with more thematic information in the earlier memories, and more resolution information in the alter ones. Some Adlerians believe that the "resolution" to life problems can be found in the Early Recollections if the clinician is astute enough to find it.

9. Sequence: The order in which Early Recollections are reported can be interpreted. Following the sequence of themes, typology of the "I" in the recollections, directional and positional movement, and degree of activity may be a model for the broad sequence of events in a person's life, and even a map of what to expect over the course of therapy.

10. Heaven and Hell. Sometimes, but not in every case, the recollections may be in stark contrast to each other, representing the extremes of favorable and unfavorable events. It's as if the client is saying "This is how it should be, but this is how it is" in the extremes.

Additional reading, supervision, and practice will help make the use of Early Recollections a valuable clinical tool.