Aggregating 46 years of research, this book proposes a fresh approach on how to conduct assessment and therapy using autobiographical memories. It offers a system to identify and deconstruct major lifetime memories and shows how clinicians can work with the content of these memories to help clients better understand past events as present events are filtered through them. Dr. Bruhn’s first book on this subject, Earliest Childhood Memories: Theory and Application to Clinical Practice (1990), illustrated what could be learned about clients’ present situation from the Early Memories Procedure (EMP), which is designed to identify and explore autobiographical memories of problematic experiences in therapy. The present book, which builds upon Dr. Bruhn’s work with incarcerated women and male parolees, shows what can be done with these key memories by working directly on them in therapy. Dr. Bruhn showcases a new insight-oriented treatment paradigm, "memories work," to help resolve the issues identified in EMP responses. Chapters offer an alternative view of processing trauma and explore each facet of using memories work to design mental health interventions with clients. Included throughout are detailed case studies and techniques to re-engineer dysfunctional perceptions. Clinicians and therapists will come away with the tools necessary to use memories work successfully with clients.
This book illustrates the link that unites memory, thought, and narration, and explores how the act of telling helps people to understand themselves and others. The structure of the book is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on the aspect of narrative comprehension—the person as narrator. It identifies two different origins of narrative comprehension (memory and play) and argues that the narratives we produce starting from autobiographical memory are intended to give order and meaning to events that happened in the past, in order to be able to interpret the present. Conversely, the narratives we produce starting from play are aesthetically constructed, not forced to respect reality, and because of this create potential new worlds of understanding. The second part of this book is devoted to the study of narrative understanding as an understanding of the other. Chapters examine the different points of view a listener can adopt in order to interpret the text produced by a narrator and how these points of view can interact with each other. The book concludes with a consideration of narrative comprehension in the digital world, and examines the principal effects of stories and narrative on the notion of self in the realm of the “Internet galaxy.” Telling to Understand will be of interest to researchers and students in cognitive science, psychology, literary studies, philosophy, education, and educational technology, as well as any reader interested in enlarging their concept of narrative and how narrating modifies the self.
Autobiographical memory is constituted from the integration of several memory skills, as well as the ability to narrate. This all helps in understanding our relation to self, family contexts, culture, brain development, and traumatic experiences. The present volume discusses contemporary approaches to childhood memories and examines cutting-edge research on the development of autobiographical memory. The chapters in this book written by a group of leading authors, each make a unique contribution by describing a specific developmental domain. In providing a multinational and multicultural perspective on autobiographical memory development—and by covering a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, this state-of-the-book is essential reading on the autobiographical memory system for memory researchers and graduate students. It is also of interest to scholars and students working more broadly in the fields of cognitive, developmental, and social psychology, and to academics who are conducting interdisciplinary research on neuroscience, family relationships, narrative methods, culture, and oral history.
Autobiographical memory is a major form of human memory. it is the basis of most psycotherapies, an important repository of legal, historical, and literary information, and, in some views, the source of the concept of self. When it fails, it is the focus of serious complaints in many neurological disorders. This timely book brings together and integrates the best contemporary work on the cognitive psychology of autobiographical memory. Introductory chapters place the study of autobiographical memory in its historical, methodological, and theoretical contexts; chapters reporting original research probe the recollections people have for substantial portions of their lives. Topics include the schematic and temporal organization of autobiographical memory, the temporal distribution of autobiographical memories, and the failures of autobiographical memory in various forms of amnesia. Autobiographical Memory constitutes the first tutorial in this exciting new area of research. Cognitive psychologists, clinicians, researchers in artificial intelligence, and their students - indeed, anyone interested in the processes that preserve and distort autobiography - will find it a useful resource.
Measuring Behaviour is a guide to the principles and methods of quantitative studies of behaviour, with an emphasis on techniques of direct observation, recording and analysis. Numerous textbooks describe and analyse human and animal behaviour, but none provides a comprehensive review of the principles and techniques of its measurement. Those undertaking this task for the first time are often bemused by the apparent difficulty of the job facing them - how will they accurately and systematically record all that is happening? The purpose of this book is to provide this basic knowledge in a succinct and easily understood form. This concise review of methodology includes a comprehensive annotated bibliography. Written with ,brevity and clarity, Measuring Behaviour is intended, above all, as a practical guide-book.
A New York Times Notable Book: A psychologist’s “gripping and thought-provoking” look at how and why our brains sometimes fail us (Steven Pinker, author of How the Mind Works). In this intriguing study, Harvard psychologist Daniel L. Schacter explores the memory miscues that occur in everyday life, placing them into seven categories: absent-mindedness, transience, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias, and persistence. Illustrating these concepts with vivid examples—case studies, literary excerpts, experimental evidence, and accounts of highly visible news events such as the O. J. Simpson verdict, Bill Clinton’s grand jury testimony, and the search for the Oklahoma City bomber—he also delves into striking new scientific research, giving us a glimpse of the fascinating neurology of memory and offering “insight into common malfunctions of the mind” (USA Today). “Though memory failure can amount to little more than a mild annoyance, the consequences of misattribution in eyewitness testimony can be devastating, as can the consequences of suggestibility among pre-school children and among adults with ‘false memory syndrome’ . . . Drawing upon recent neuroimaging research that allows a glimpse of the brain as it learns and remembers, Schacter guides his readers on a fascinating journey of the human mind.” —Library Journal “Clear, entertaining and provocative . . . Encourages a new appreciation of the complexity and fragility of memory.” —The Seattle Times “Should be required reading for police, lawyers, psychologists, and anyone else who wants to understand how memory can go terribly wrong.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution “A fascinating journey through paths of memory, its open avenues and blind alleys . . . Lucid, engaging, and enjoyable.” —Jerome Groopman, MD “Compelling in its science and its probing examination of everyday life, The Seven Sins of Memory is also a delightful book, lively and clear.” —Chicago Tribune Winner of the William James Book Award