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The Counseling Psychologist
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Conference

Assessing the Qualities of Social Relationships in Clinical and Nonclinical Individuals

Michele Sebastian Downie

Virginia Commonwealth University

Steven B. Robbins

Virginia Commonwealth University

This study highlights the use of a semistructured interview to explore essential positive and negative qualities of current and historic significant relationships. This approach allows for identifying who (or what) comprises each respondent's significant social network and for conducting a qualitative analysis of those positive and negative qualities that affect participant's lives. Using a self-psychology perspective, it was hypothesized that four bipolar qualities-availability, reliability, empathy, and non-intrusiveness-would emerge, with clinical individuals emphasizing the negative pole and nonclinical individuals emphasizing the positive. Both clinical and nonclinical individuals identified friends and family, with clinical individuals incorporating therapists, mentors, and organized groups into their significant social influences. As expected, empathy, reliability, and availability emerged, and clinical individuals had overall fewer positive themes and greater negative themes, including lack of reciprocity and feeling devalued by others. Future research must begin understanding the determinants of perceptual and relational response styles and the ways in which formal and informal sup-port influences the life adaptation process.

The Counseling Psychologist, Vol. 26, No. 3, 466-488 (1998)
DOI: 10.1177/0011000098263009
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L. A. Suzuki, M. K. Ahluwalia, A. K. Arora, and J. S. Mattis
The Pond You Fish In Determines the Fish You Catch: Exploring Strategies for Qualitative Data Collection
The Counseling Psychologist, March 1, 2007; 35(2): 295 - 327.
[Abstract] [PDF]