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Systemic therapists assume, but have not yet proved that ordinary people: (i) normally do not use triadic thinking and (ii) are able, thanks to therapists' interviewing techniques, to construct triadic explanations. To test these assumptions this study analyses the explanations provided by 400 undergraduates of an unexpected piece of behaviour framed in four stimulus situations where the breadth of the observation field was manipulated. The results show that triadic explanations are unusual and increase with the widening of the field of observation from the monad to the triad. It is the 'enigmatic' triadic situation -adding a puzzling discrepancy between the actors' forms of behaviour -that elicits more triadic explanations. This suggests that therapists should explore with clients the contradictions disclosed by the widening of the field of observation and support reframings actively co-constructed with them instead of 'pre-packaged' ones.

The study analyzes relationships between socialization practices and identity. A special form of role construct repertory grid was applied to 2 groups of preadolescents who had experienced opposed socialization practices. Group I was raised within a "polyadic model," with several caregivers and multiple attachments, and Group 2 was raised within a "dyadic model," with a single caregiver who had privileged relationship with the child. Those in Group 1 were found to be more multidimensional and more inclined than those in Group 2 to construe themselves and others ambivalently. They also tended to identify with more people than those in Group 2, who identified with 1 or at most 2 people. Those in Group 1 tended fo distinguish more clearly between "me as I amU and "me as others see me." These results are discussed and interpreted as adaptation strategies for different social contexts.

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The article presents a semantic analysis inspired by the theory of family semantic polarities developed by Ugazio (, ) applying two versions of a coding system, the Family Semantic Grid (FSG), to a couple session with Tom Andersen as a consultant. One version (FSG II) detects the narrated semantic polarities (NSPs) emerging during the session from the transcript, whereas the other (FSG III) identifies the interactive semantic polarities (ISPs) from the video recording. Both the NSPs and the ISPs are classified according to four sets of meaning called the semantic of freedom, goodness, power, and belonging. The analysis puts forward some hypothesis about the pattern that entangles the couple and highlights Andersen's contributions to overcome the problem troubling the couple.