Research on Family Interaction I: Static and Dynamic Models |
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| Authors: | WILLIAM R. TAYLOR M.D. |
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| Affiliation: | Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, University of Connecticut Medical School. The author acknowledges the assistance of members of the staff of the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic and Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania in the preparation of earlier versions of this paper, while the author was Staff Child Psychiatrist and Instructor, Department of Psychiatry. |
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| Abstract: | A static and dynamic model of family structure are presented and illustrated in clinical application to a pilot study. The basic measure is a content-free assessment of the sequence of states of interaction in family sessions. Using Markov process concepts, certain parallels between the behavioral variables (state transitions) and the more abstract clinical concepts of family structure can be identified. By subsuming the latter structural concepts under a framework of "balance theory" (Heider; Cartwright and Harary) considerable reduction in complexity is achieved without sacrificing clinical relevance.
Still to be explored are the applications to the study of therapist-family interaction and of treatment-related changes in structural and behavioral measures. |
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