ABSTRACT
H. E. Hershfield reviewed the growing literature on how perceptions of the self over time can dramatically affect decision making, finding that people with psychological connectedness that is realistically positive are more willing to make choices today that may benefit them at some point in the years to come. Van Gelder, Hershfield and Nordgren note that the failure to think through the delayed consequences of behavior is one of the strongest individual-level correlates of delinquency, and found that by strengthening the vividness of the future self, adolescent involvement in delinquency can be reduced. Subjects who wrote a letter to their future self were less inclined to make delinquent choices. Kress, Hoffman, and Thomas describe their use of therapeutic letter writing, including letters from one's future self, in their work with survivors of sexual abuse. The author has used the intervention sparingly, and in the context of a session in which many members feel stuck in therapy and life.
