Objectivity in psychoanalytic assessment of couple relationships.

BACKGROUND Clinicians claim that partners in a couple can be understood to share a mode of relating, at an unconscious level. Assessment of this depends on inference from observable data. This study tests the viability and reliability of a modification of the Personal Relatedness Profile (PRP) for this purpose. AIMS To test the interrater reliability and construct validity of a joint PRP score for couples. METHOD Seven therapists independently rated couples' interactions using the 30-item PRP and segments of videotaped interviews with 19 couples. RESULTS Interrater reliability was good and correlations between items clearly supported the underlying Kleinian bipolar model used (paranoid-schizoid/ depressive positions). CONCLUSIONS Psychoanalytic couple psychotherapists agree in independent judgements of the nature of couple functioning, these judgements being based on envisaging couples in terms of an unconsciously shared state of mind.