Early Recollections

Our present and our past are manifestly intertwined. Memories are not identical simulations of the past, but are stories shaped by our current perspectives of others, the world, and ourselves. As a result, the gathering of early recollections can be used as a projective technique that indicates our strengths, goals, lines of movement, fears, and a host of other relevant psychological data. Early Recollections are a quick, accurate, and cost-effective personality assessment demonstrated to have similar reliability and validity to other personality measures. Both a comprehensive and accessible text, Early Recollections: Interpretative Method and Application presents a constructivist approach and systematic development of early recollection theory. Mosak and Di Pietro invite students to think and actively engage in problem solving rather than merely read for content. Supported by step-by-step examples, this book also offers a perspective suitable for application by Adlerian practitioners, non-Adlerian clinicians, and all other mental health professionals and students seeking a new framework for evaluating personality.

Harold H. Mosak, Ph.D, ABPP, is Distinguished Service Professor of Clinical Psychology at the Adler School of Professional Psychology in Chicago, which he helped found in 1952. Roger Di Pietro, Psych.D., is currently a Departmental Fellow at the Strong Family Therapy Services at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

preface. Introduction. What are Early Recollections and What Can We Learn from Them? Test Administration.  The Headline Method. The Typological Approach. The Life Style Convictions Approach. Sequential Analysis. Sample Analyses. Details in ERs. ERs and Diagnosis. Client-therapist Relationship. ERs in Martial Therapy. ERs and Vocation. Pre- and Postintervention ERs. Pre- and Postintervention ERs. Common Response Themes. Common Thematic Topics. Reliability and Validity. The Quantifiers. The Freudians. Alfred Adler and the Adlerians. The Applied Group. The New Adlerians. Other Methods of Gathering and Interpreting ERs. Methods of Interpretation. Denouement. References. Index.