Developing a Systematic Procedure for the Assessment of Self-Defining Memories in Psychodynamic Therapy: Promise and Pitfalls

Abstract

The innovative approach to assessing autobiographical memory narratives that Singer and Bonalume (2010) demonstrate in their case study of Cynthia is an ambitious expression of integrative psychotherapy research. It brings together the rich research findings on self-defining memories derived from laboratory studies and therapy case analyses, and applies these to the multimodal assessment situation in a psychotherapy program. Further, Singer and Bonalume's case of Cynthia is grounded in a truly "common factor" that is essential to most if not all psychotherapies: patient narrative expression. However, the integration of findings across different research studies still needs further elaboration to clarify and explore when they are consistent and when they are inconsistent with one another. In our commentary we critically assess the following issues associated with Singer and Bonalume's narrative memory coding system and its application to the case of Cynthia: (a) the utilization of narrative analyses for the identification of themes; (b) challenges inherent in establishing criteria for the identification of clinically important autobiographical memory narratives in therapy sessions; (c) the degree of integrative processing that takes place in narrative expression; and (d) the process of formulating inferences based on client narrative expression in assessment interviews versus therapy sessions.  The commentary concludes with a discussion of promising future directions for narrative research in psychotherapy.