The Child and the Family
- Author:
Charlotte Biihler.
Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd. 10s. 6d.
Human relationships, with their complexities, subjectivity and deep-seated origins, are always difficult to assess, and particularly so are those listing in home life. Dr Biihler here describes a Psychometric technique whereby she and her Collaborators made the bold attempt to measure ^ linear terms the intimacies involved in the Parent-Child and the Sibling relationship. briefly, her method is to analyse the relation- ship into components, subdivide the components Under various heads, and observe the number of t^ries the relationship exhibits itself in each of these possible ways. Thus, the Parent-Child relationship is analysed into four components, each having a double aspect according as it is v’cved from the parents’ or from the child’s angle?Situations in which the approach is made: UrPoses of the approach: Means whereby con- a?t is established: Reactions to the approaches. Situations are further subdivided according as they deal with Social Intercourse, Play, lological or Domestic incidents, School, and “e Outside World; and likewise, the other com- ponents have their subdivisions.
Sibling relationships are analysed rather ^erently, but the procedure is similar in so far ^ it attempts to make linear measurements of e siblings’ approach to each other, and the a^ure of their contacts and reactions. ^rained observers, with the parents’ co- l^ration, paid friendly visits twice a week for priods covering from three to eighteen months, 0 the households of those who submitted to the .xPeriment. From their observations and classi- a?ations of the individual family contacts, tables graphs were drawn up from which was Certained an average for each kind of approach, ntact, and reaction; these were then used as andards by which to measure the various Pfcts of individual relationships.
Qu r Va*ue quantitative results lies in their a’itative significance, and turning to the ^ binaries and interpretations of these studies e cannot but question whether the qualitative results justify the laborious work entailed, and whether the trained observer could not have ascertained fully as much about the relationships without this elaborate technique. The sus- picion even occurs that a psychiatric social worker might have delved deeper and obtained a richer, more unitary pattern than emerges from this series of analytical tables. But for those who, like Dr Biihler, cannot accept the concepts and principles of the psychoanalytical technique, there will be interest and satisfaction in this statistical approach; the results seem likely to confirm the psychoanalytical interpretation with- out being qualitatively so complete.
Dr Biihler claims for the study nothing more than a methodological significance and a wide extension to many and varied types of home would be necessary if the results were to be standardized. A serious practical difficulty in such an extension of the experiment would lie in getting access to homes. It is certainly doubtful whether this searching analysis into family relations would be possible on a large scale in a land where a man’s home is still his castle, and where natural spontaneity has a trick of drying up when it is known that ” A chiel’s amang you taking notes, And, faith, he’ll prent it.” G.B.
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