Prepare enrich assessment measure relationship closeness & flexibility with Couple & Family Maps

This week we look at the prepare enrich assessment, focused on “Couple & Family Maps” derived from the Circumplex Model.

 

The Couple and Family Maps are powerful tools to use in helping couples and families better understand why they perceive their relationships as they do. They can also clarify the typical interactional patterns that at first glance appear baffling and perhaps even counter-productive. Unfortunately, many facilitators never get to the Maps during their feedback sessions, or fail to explain its significance to couples and families.

What are the Couple and Family Maps?

The most basic reason for the Couple and Family Maps are to show where each individual views themselves in terms of “flexibility” and “closeness” in past family experience, as well as where they are in their current couple relationship.

When you are getting married, you are not only marrying your partner, but their family as well. It is important for both individuals to understand the influence their past family experience has had on them and what they are bringing to the relationship.

The Couple and Family Maps are also very useful because they encourage proactive behavior by illustrating that people are not fixed in one place on the map. They can visually see the changes they’ve had from past to present family relationships and this enables them to plan where they would want to fit on their couple map in the future.

The Basics:

• The map charts how each partner perceives closeness and flexibility in the couple relationship and their family of origin.
  • Closeness is defined as the emotional bonding that couple and family members have toward one another.
  • Flexibility is the amount of change in leadership, role relationships and relationship rules.
• The map consists of Balanced, Mid-Range, and Unbalanced areas, indicated by the different shades of squares.

Insights:

• Balance is key. The 9 white squares in the middle of the map make up the balanced range. Couples and families that fall in this area are considered the most functional and healthy.
• Family of origin is important because individuals often tend to recreate the type of family system they had as a child or react to it by doing the opposite.
• It is normal for couples and families to move across the map as they go through different life stages and/or face major stressors.
• If you administered the Parenting Version of P/E, the map will chart the corresponding parenting style of each partner overall and with each child.

 

Helpful questions when discussing the Prepare enrich assessments Couple and Family Maps:

1)  How does each partner view the relationship? In what ways do they perceive it similarly, and in what ways do they see it differently?
2)  Given where they currently are on the Couple Map, where would they like to see their relationship move? Why?
3)  Where on the Family Map did each partner’s family-of-origin experience show up? How did they compare to each other? In what ways were they similar or different?
4)  Ask the couple to discuss how their respective family-of-origin experiences shape their current relationship. What do they want to keep from those experiences? What do they hope to avoid repeating?

 

Resources:

• Recent research on the Circumplex Model

• For more information on the Circumplex Model see www.facesiv.com

Couple Exercises

• The Couple & Family Map (PDF)

 

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