The Crown-Crisp Experiential Index (CCEI) was designed as a measure of neurotic symptomatology. The tendency has been to report upon its six separate scales and to ignore the total score. We report on the use of the CCEI in a detailed interview study of 208 40-49-year-old women from a local community and 40 patients of the same age range and sex from a psychiatric hospital. In this study, scores on the six scales of the CCEI were shown to be highly intercorrelated. A case is made for combining the six scale scores to form an overall score of neurotic pathology. This score was validated against a number of variables. It was shown to be significantly related to psychiatric patient status, negative self-evaluation, level of severity of current symptoms, evidence of previous psychiatric episodes, previous psychiatric treatment and psychiatric symptoms in childhood. These validation variables were themselves intercorrelated but severity of current symptoms, self-evaluation and childhood symptoms had significant independent effects. It is concluded that scores on the six scales of the CCEI may be less important than the total score which provides a useful and valid measure of psychoneurotic pathology and has particular application as a screening instrument in community surveys.

If humans have evolved from earlier animals, there must be a common core of relating which runs from the simplest to the most complex, which is capable of multiple adaptations and variations. This is represented by the interpersonal octagon, constructed around the two nodal points of a dimension concerned with regulating distance, the two nodal points of a dimension concerned with relative power, and four intermediate points. Each point is associated with a relating objective called a state of relatedness. This is attained or maintained either by relating or being related to. People acquire relating competencies and establish sources and stores of each state. Emotional responses are linked with the successful attainment, danger of losing, or actual loss of states. Maladaptive forms of relating may be egocentric, insecure, or avoidant. Interrelating is the process by which two people reconcile their respective relating objectives.

The need to define dependence arises out of accumulating evidence that it contributes to depression-proneness. Its accurate definition is therefore a prerequisite for the development of valid methods of measuring it. Because dependence is more a feature of childhood than of adulthood, a dependent person may usefully be viewed as an adult behaving as though he were a child. Dependence is best understood therefore in terms of those developmental deficiencies from which it results. These are failure to separate successfully from the principal parent figure and from the family as a whole, failure to establish a secure personal identity, failure to acquire a general feeling of competence and a realistic assessment of self-worth and failure to feel deserving of the status of adult and to feel on equal terms with other adults. Consequently, adult dependence is characterized by the need to stay close to others, the inclination to be primarily the recipient in interpersonal transactions and the tendency to relate to others from a position of inferiority and humility. The dependent person receives from others a borrowed identity, guidance and direction, compensation for those areas in which he is incompetent and, most important of all, acceptance, approval and affirmation of worth.

No abstract

The study tested Bowlby's hypothesis that experiencing the poor relating of parents in childhood predisposes the individual to poor relating in adult life. Data were drawn from two community samples: a younger sample of 25-34-year-old married women, and an older one of 40-49-year-old women. Data were also drawn from the husbands of the women in the younger sample. It focused on the single childhood variable of the recollection of poor maternal care. To avoid the effect of this on depression or other psychopathology, groups who were depressed and not depressed, or who were at different levels of psychopathology, were examined separately. Recollection of poor early care was associated with poor relating, lower age at marriage, poor-quality marriage and divorce from first marriage. There was a suggestion that the effects of the recollection of poor early care of marital partners summate.