ASSESSING INDIVIDUAL FAMILY MEMBERS CONSTRUCTIONS OF FAMILY PROBLEMS

Much contemporary family therapy theory and practice takes into accoun t clients' cognitive constructions of their family problems. Recent ca lls for therapists to elicit and work with clients' causal explanation s and narratives parallel accumulating evidence in. the social-clinica l literature about the predictive importance of attributions in family relationships. In this article, we introduce the Constructions of Pro blems Scale (CPS), provide preliminary evidence of its reliability and validity, and suggest ways in which it can be used clinically to reve al new areas for questioning and to generate new ideas. The CPS is a b rief questionnaire that can be used to create a profile of each indivi dual family member's private constructions. To complete the CPS, each family member writes a free-form narrative of the presenting problem a nd then, rates his or her perceptions of the contributing causes. The CPS profiles can be used to compare the perspectives of different fami ly members and to assess cognitive constructions at different points i n treatment. We discuss its potential for these and other clinical use s.