Laying the foundation for progress research in family, couple, and individual therapy: The development and psychometric features of the initial systemic therapy inventory of change

Abstract

This article details the development and methodological characteristics of the Systemic Therapy Inventory of Change (STIC), the first measurement system designed to assess change in family, couple, and individual therapy from a multisystemic and multidimensional perspective. The article focuses specifically on the developmental process that resulted in the five valid and reliable scales that comprise the core measure of the system, the INITIAL STIC, which is administered to clients just before beginning therapy. The scales focus on five systemic domains: individual adult, family of origin, couple, family, and individual child. This article describes the five system scales, the results of the factor analytic process that created them, as well as data on their convergent and discriminant validity.

Targeting Threats to the Therapeutic Alliance: A Primer for Marriage and Family Therapy Training

“…Two computer-based feedback systems, the Systemic Inventory of Change (STIC; Pinsof et al, 2009) and the System for Observing Family Therapy Alliances (SOFTA; Friedlander et al, 2006) have been developed to serve as both clinical and research tools. Similar systems for tracking therapy outcomes and comparing them with norms have been used to relay clinically relevant information to therapists when their clients are responding poorly to treatment .…”

A Visual Method for Couple Assessment, Therapy Progress, and Identifying Clinically Significant Change

“…Cut-off scores that accurately identify relational distressed couples from relationally adjusted couples were found to be at 48 for the total score with scores above 48 indicating greater marital adjustment and below 48 indicating greater relational distress (Crane, Middleton, & Bean, 2000). It is interesting to note that the developers of the STIC assessment protocol used the RDAS to establish criterion validity for their instruments (Pinsof et al, 2009). …”

“…Clients in their study were given the Marital Assessment Test (MAT, Locke & Wallace, 1959) only at pretest and at termination. Pinsof et al (2009) introduced the Systemic Therapy Inventory of Change (STIC) in an attempt to integrate systemic ideas and measurements into couple and family therapy utilizing a patient-focused research paradigm. The implementation of STIC is somewhat similar to the method described previously with the ORS and SRS (see Duncan, Miller, & Sparks, 2004;Miller et al, 2005, for further discussion of their method).…”

“…The Anker et al (2009) research with couples' work demonstrates the power of patient-focused assessment in couple clinical practice. The STIC (Pinsof et al, 2009) method promises detailed and real-time data collection aimed at couple and family therapy and is in its beginning stages of utilization. Future research needs to be done analyzing real-world practice data with a patient-focused research methodology.…”

“…The STIC includes a more comprehensive 140-item assessment covering five domains: Individual Problems and Strengths, Family of Origin, Relationship with Partner, Family/Household, and Child Problems and Strengths. The Initial STIC is given prior to intake while a shorter version of the initial assessment questionnaire is given in between each session (Pinsof et al, 2009).…”