ABSTRACT
Speci®c assessment procedures can be especially appropriate when assigned as homework, often blending an attempt to tap into and make more visible or audible a client's processes of meaning making with a therapeutic intent to promote changeinducing self-dialogue. An illustration of such arose in the context of work with a young woman named Kristin undergoing a period of exploration of self and career who expressed intrigue at my suggestion of using Mahoney's (1991) mirror time as a means of quite literally re¯ecting upon herself at an important life juncture. The procedure involves spending a speci®ed period of time before a mirror in a private setting, perhaps accompanied by re¯ective instrumental music. Depending on the technique's intended focus, the client can be encouraged to allow her or his attention to range freely, or be given a set of guiding instructions (e.g., to allow parts of the self to pose relevant questions and other parts to provide answers, or to shift awareness to different parts of the face or body). Likewise, the feelings and re¯ections that arise during and after the exercise can be recorded in a free-form journal entry immediately afterward, or simply noted for later therapeutic discussion. An adaptation of mirror time instructions appears in Table 3.
