Date of Award
Spring 2020
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Psychology; College of Arts & Sciences
First Advisor
Steven Robbins
Second Advisor
Katherine Moore
Third Advisor
Michael Morrow
Abstract
SHIVANI MANSHARAMANI
Therapist Self-Disclosure and Recall of Therapy Content
Research Mentor: Dr. Steven Robbins
Patients’ faulty memory of what they learned in therapy is often associated with poor outcomes. One way to improve therapeutic outcome is to improve patients’ memory of therapy content. Therapist Self-Disclosure (TSD) refers to a therapist’s disclosure of personal information to facilitate the client-therapist relationship. It has been employed as a tool to improve alliance and overall treatment outcome, and has often been used to prime more client disclosure. Past research on a memory support system has been unsuccessful at significantly improving client memory. In this regard, the purpose of the present study is to investigate the impact of TSD on clients’ memory of treatment content. Participants were assigned to one of three conditions: emotional disclosure, or disclosure of first hand experience with mindfulness; non-emotional disclosure, or disclosure of experience on a course about mindfulness; or non-disclosure, or just a statement of facts about mindfulness. They were then asked to rate the therapist, and recall what they learned in a mindfulness meditation. Type of TSD did not significantly affect recall of what participants learned in therapy, nor how they perceived the therapist. This lack of significant effect implies the need for different strategies to help with memory recall, one of which is more implicit learning methods. Research suggests that people are better at recall in the presence of a cue, or implicitly, rather than without one, or explicitly. Future research may focus on improving participants’ memory by using implicit, cue based memory strategies.
Recommended Citation
Mansharamani, Shivani and Robbins, Steven, "Therapist Self-Disclosure and Recall of Therapy Content" (2020). Capstone Showcase. 20.
https://scholarworks.arcadia.edu/showcase/2020/psychology/20
Included in
Clinical Psychology Commons, Cognitive Psychology Commons, Counseling Psychology Commons
Therapist Self-Disclosure and Recall of Therapy Content
SHIVANI MANSHARAMANI
Therapist Self-Disclosure and Recall of Therapy Content
Research Mentor: Dr. Steven Robbins
Patients’ faulty memory of what they learned in therapy is often associated with poor outcomes. One way to improve therapeutic outcome is to improve patients’ memory of therapy content. Therapist Self-Disclosure (TSD) refers to a therapist’s disclosure of personal information to facilitate the client-therapist relationship. It has been employed as a tool to improve alliance and overall treatment outcome, and has often been used to prime more client disclosure. Past research on a memory support system has been unsuccessful at significantly improving client memory. In this regard, the purpose of the present study is to investigate the impact of TSD on clients’ memory of treatment content. Participants were assigned to one of three conditions: emotional disclosure, or disclosure of first hand experience with mindfulness; non-emotional disclosure, or disclosure of experience on a course about mindfulness; or non-disclosure, or just a statement of facts about mindfulness. They were then asked to rate the therapist, and recall what they learned in a mindfulness meditation. Type of TSD did not significantly affect recall of what participants learned in therapy, nor how they perceived the therapist. This lack of significant effect implies the need for different strategies to help with memory recall, one of which is more implicit learning methods. Research suggests that people are better at recall in the presence of a cue, or implicitly, rather than without one, or explicitly. Future research may focus on improving participants’ memory by using implicit, cue based memory strategies.