THE INFLUENCE OF RELATIONSHIP ENHANCEMENT TRAINING ON DIFFERENTIATION OF SELF

The effectiveness of the Relationship Enhancement (RE) program (Guerney, 1987a) in increasing functional and basic levels of differentiation of self (Bowen, 1987a) was examined. Participants were 20 married couples who received training in relationship enhancement skills over six 2 1/2-hour sessions. Measures of differentiation of self, quality of relationship, and anxiety were obtained before and after training and at follow-up. The data show that significant increases in the functional and basic levels of differentiation of self occurred, a significant increase in the quality of relationship occurred, and significant negative correlations were found between differentiation of self and anxiety.