Abstract
Beginning in the 1950s Murray Bowen developed one of the most influential and long-standing family systems therapies: Multigenerational Family Therapy. Bowen's central theoretical construct is the 'differentiation of self ', or the capacity to establish and maintain a solid and stable sense of self in the context of relationship pressures and emotional demands. In more recent years Bowen's central construct has been tested via the development of new inventories including the Differentiation of Self Inventory (DSI) of Skowron and Friedlander. These researchers employed factorial analysis to provide support for Bowen's original four dimensional model of differentiation (i.e., I-Position, Emotional Reactivity, Emotional Cut-off and Emotional Fusion) and developed the DSI. Some theorists have raised questions as to whether these dimensions provide a full and sufficient representation of the complexity of this construct. More recently, a preliminary investigation by the presenters of this paper extended Skowron and Friedlander's research by investigating whether other factors also play a role in the differentiation of self Results of this study suggested the possible existence of a new factor, namely the capacity to tolerate interpersonal difference in the context of close interpersonal relationships. This presentation by the authors will report on the initial and subsequent studies especially by discussing the dimensions of selfdifferentiation identified in the more recent, larger and more diverse study of 400 counselling students from Australia, the United Kingdom and South East Asia. Results not only support the validity of the additional component of differentiation identified in the pilot study (i.e., the capacity to tolerate interpersonal difference) but also raise questions as to whether the intrapsychic dimensions of self-differentiation observed in these participants may be expressed differently from those observed in North American respondents who were the focus of Skowron and Friedlander's original work. Implications of these findings for practitioners involved in relationship counseling will also be discussed.