Superficial and systemic diagnosis of family

The distinction between two types of diagnosis of family was inspired by the concept of surface and source features of personality by R.B. Cattell. By means of existing psychological questionnaires we can only know the surface of consciously available mental phenomena. The same is true in the diagnosis of family. The McMaster model of family, systemic in its assumptions, developed research tools giving access only to the surface of the phenomena. Although they are divided into certain thematic categories they do not reveal what is really important in the family system. In this article, the author, after a detailed discussion of one of the tests based on the McMaster theoretical model, is attempting to identify the source features (here: unavailable for conscious cognition) of the family, hereinafter called systemic traits. In this research the exploration factor analysis was used. Three perspectives of the opinion of the family were maintained (like in the Family Assessment Measure). Factor analysis allowed identification of three factors for each perspective of the family assessment. Confirmative analysis proved a satisfactory match (using RMSEA, GFI and AGFI statistics). The accuracy of the identified systemic model was then tested by a confirmation study (confirmative factor analysis using Amos from SPSS). The authors also prepared a provisional questionnaire for measuring these systemic traits of the family. The tool proved to be promising and the work worth continuing. Incidentally, it turned out that the characteristics of the family system are relatively independent of personality traits of family members.