it certantly is not unheard of for a counselor to ask for notes of previous counselors, it allows them to establish a baseline and such. As for figuring out what your counselors approach/school of thought would be by looking at the assignments that he/she gives you to do/ what her responses are to what you say. If she stresses thought and negative thinking then he/she is probably taking a Cognitive approach. If he/she talks alot about unconscious motivation and your childhood experiances than they are probably comming from the psychodynamic school of thought. If they talk about reinforcers, learned behavior and the sort then they are comming from the behavioral school of thought...

Hope this helps some,
Jason