The Central Relationship Questionnaire: Initial Report

This study presents an initial evaluation of the psychometric properties of the Central Relationship Questionnaire (CRQ), a measure of central relationship patterns. These patterns refer to people's characteristic ways of relating to significant others in terms of their wishes, their perceptions of others' responses to them, and their own responses to both of these. The self-report CRQ is derived from L. Luborsky's (1977) clinician-rated Core Conflictual Relationship Theme. Overall, the results indicated that the CRQ components could be differentiated into meaningful subscales. These subscales were internally consistent, demonstrated significant stability over a year, and evidenced preliminary convergent and divergent validity with measures of interpersonal problems and symptomatology. It is concluded on the basis of these promising results that the CRQ merits further empirical development. Specific suggestions for accomplishing this are presented.