INFORMANTS EXPERIENCE WITH THE KVEBAEK-FAMILY-SCULPTURE-TECHNIQUE - ACOMPARISON BETWEEN A CLINICAL AND AN EPIDEMIOLOGIC SAMPLE

We measured the informants' experience with the Kvebaek Family Sculptu re Technique (KFST), a symbolic figure placement technique, by adminis tering a questionnaire to 28 adolescent inpatient families and 35 adol escent families participating in an epidemiological study of mental he alth in the general population. We asked whether configurations reflec ted feelings between family members, whether informants were significa ntly influenced by the situation in which the technique was administer ed, and whether the configurations were stable in terms of showing typ ical family relationships. The findings support the impression that th e KFST is reliable in its use with both clinical and normal population samples. In general, informants in both samples confirmed that the in strument reflected feelings between family members. However, the diffe rences between the samples show that subjects probably behave differen tly in a test situation, depending on the amount of psychiatric proble ms. Further research is warranted, to address the influence of context in relation to individual and family psychiatric factors.