Effects of Self-Tape Recording on Self-Awareness in a Context of Self-Counseling

Clinical evidence suggests that self-tape recording and listening is a useful technique for enhancing awareness in self-counseling. The question arises as to the roles of talking and listening in the process. This study experimentally compared the effects on self-awareness of three group experiences of “Talk and Listen,” “Talk Only” and “Listen Only,” using 90 graduate students in counseling as subjects. A set of self-awareness scales which utilize core conditions of counseling measured self-awareness in subjects of self-facilitation and self-initiation, following the group experiences. Analysis of variance showed significant differences favoring the “Talk and Listen” experiences over the other two experiences in both self-facilitation and self-initiation. It was concluded that self-tape recording and listening may be a moderately powerful self-counseling technique for producing psychological states which are related to therapeutic movement. It is suggested that self-tape recording is worthy of further investigation and use.