An interview between a college counselor and client, comprising 54 dyads, was used to demonstrate a classification system for counselor retrospections. The interview and subsequent counselor retrospections and client reactions were recorded, transcribed, and coded. After intercoder agreement was established, contingency analyses were computed. In general, six retrospective dimensions were not closely related to concurrent counselor behaviors nor to measures of client satisfaction. Most frequent counselor retrospections and behaviors and a factor analysis were interpreted in terms of descriptive information. These findings were compared with those of four other interviews. In this case, the single case method seems appropriate to data which are highly individual, personal, and intricate. Results imply that counseling is an art in which thought pattern is more important than exact thought at a point in time. This is valuable for counselor training and practice as well as for analyzing complex idiosyncratic phenomena. (Author)