A Practical Tool for Family Assessment Based on the Social Relations Model

Abstract

An empirically based family assessment can help family therapists understand how a family functions. In systemic therapy a family is seen as a dynamic system in which the family members form interdependent subsystems. The Social Relations Model (SRM) is a useful tool to study such interdependence within a family. According to the SRM, each dyadic score is viewed as the sum of an unobserved family effect, an individual actor and partner effect, and a relation-specific effect. If dyadic data are obtained for a specific family using a round robin design, these different SRM effects can be calculated using an ANOVA-approach. To gain insight into the functioning of a particular family, the family-specific SRM effects can be compared to those from a norm sample and it can be deduced whether that family has deviating scores on a particular SRM effect. Currently, such a family assessment relies on the mean and variance of the SRM ANOVA scores in the norm sample. However, family therapists may not always have access to these data, making the current approach of SRM family assessment not as useful in practice. In this article, we introduce a user-friendly web application that uses an alternative method for SRM family assessment. This alternative strategy requires as input the population parameter estimates of SRM means and variances more commonly described in SRM family literature.

Multiple Group Structural Equation Modeling of the Social Relations Model

“…However, the SRM has received rather sparse attention for the study of differences in group-dynamics between groups (but see Eichelsheim et al, 2011;Loeys et al, 2021;Stas et al, 2015). Ervin and Bonito (2014) executed a detailed review of applications of the SRM.…”