The spouse subsystem in the family context: couple interaction categories

Within a semi-structured family interview (the McMaster Stuctured Interview of Family Functioning), several questions focus on intimate areas of the marital relationship. How couples answer these questions provides a window into their style of communication around potentially stressful issues. Viewing their videotaped interactions while noting their gaze patterns, dialogue, tension, and attitude, produced the following categories: Adaptive, Stable, Co-operative, Disengaged/anxious, Parallel, or Failing. Inter-observer relability was high, and the categories were related in meaningful ways to a self-report questionnaire, the McMaster Family Assessment Device, completed independently by each parent.