Relationships & Family Assessment
Assessment is a way of helping people figure out where they are at now—what their baseline positions are—so that it will make it clearer and easier to get where they want to be in the future—to achieve desired relationship goals. Assessment is only useful when it can help in the process of problem-solving and change. Almost everyone has goals for improving and strengthening their personal and family relationships.
Relationship assessment is a process of helping you and your family members identify areas of relative strength in your relationships and relative need for growth and development. This process is conducted by a licensed mental health professional specifically trained in relationship, marriage, and family issues. Often the mental health professional will be a licensed marriage and family therapist. The assessment of your family relationships is a collaborative one between you and your therapist. What that means is that your relationship therapist is not going to assume the stance of expert and tell you what you need to do without fully involving you and your family in the process. Your input and that of your family members is critical to successful relationship assessment.
You and your relationship therapist will work together to assess the quality of your relationships and to identify relationship goals along the following dimensions:
- Communication
- Openness, trust and honesty
- Conflict management, conflict resolution, and problem-solving
- Expression of affection
- Intimacy
- Handling emotion and emotional intensity
- Supportiveness and caring within the relationship
- Appreciation for self and others in your family
- Family approach to living and thriving with bipolar disorder
The initial formal assessment process culminates with the development of a specific plan for making the changes necessary so that your relationships will be more satisfying, deeper, richer, less conflicted, and a consistent source of nourishment and support for your life and for the lives of your family members. Throughout the treatment phase of the Bipolar Advantage Program, relationship assessment will be a continuous process, drawing from the initial formal assessment and adjusted, as needed, to fit the changing needs of you and your family members.
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