Enhancing effects on memory for psychotherapy in people with anxiety via metaphor encoding of solutions and motivated retrieval of problem contexts

Abstract

The psychotherapeutic memory is vital for sustaining the therapy's effect for longer, as it serves as a resource for coping with future mental distress. This study used “problem-solution” micro-counselling dialogues (MCDs) to investigate whether memory for psychotherapy in people with anxiety could be promoted by enhancing encoding and retrieval of memory. Experiment 1 examined whether metaphorical encoding of solutions could obtain better memory of solutions in people with anxiety. Experiment 2 examined whether high retrieval motivation (HRM) of problems could promote memory retrieval of solutions, especially metaphorical ones, compared with low retrieval motivation (LRM) in people with anxiety. The results revealed that (1) metaphorical encoding increased memory performance, with higher memory discrimination (d’) and correct recognition numbers (CR) of solutions compared with literal solutions in both the anxious and healthy group. (2) High retrieval motivation increased memory performance only in anxious participants, with the d’ of HRM higher than LRM and the d’ of HRM in metaphorical solutions higher than literal ones. These results indicated optimal memory of psychotherapy for anxious individuals can be achieved by simultaneously employing metaphorical encoding of solutions and increasing the retrieval motivation of problems.