The best intentions: Prospective remembering in psychotherapy

Prospective remembering is the ability to recall previously formed intentions when the occasion is right to act on those intentions. Psychotherapists and their clients often formulate plaits that are to be accomplished in the upcoming weeks. It is frequently assumed that failure to complete such plans reflects resistance to therapeutic change. Research on prospective remembering suggests that prospective memory failure may, be an alternative explanation in many such instances. The present article reviews recent research on prospective remembering, highlighting factors that influence prospective memory success. Such factors include how a prospective plan is originally formulated (i.e., the plan and the planning situation), how an individual typically organizes his or her future plans (i.e,, metamemory strategies), and what the individual is doing when the plan is to be recalled (i.e., the prospective memory retrieval situation). The implications of these research findings for prospective planning in psychotherapeutic practice are discussed throughout.