Inner images and delineations of parental figures reported by psychotherapeutic outpatients

Psychotherapeutic outpatients (10 men, 20 women) were tested with the Inner Images of Parental Figures. Each subject imagined first his mother and then his father. Questions were asked about size, look, and spatial and emotional distance of the imagined parent. The patient was then asked to describe the personality of each parent by underlining at least 20 of 85 adjectives in a list called Family Climate Scale. This originally consisted of four factors, Closeness, Spontaneity, Distance, and Chaos, but the two administered were Factor I (positive traits) and Factor II (negative traits). Emotional distance correlated positively with Factor I and negatively with Factor II. For the maternal figure there was a correlation with distance in metres and Factor I scores. The Inner Images of Parental Figures may be a valuable complement in psychotherapy, mapping out emotional relations between patients and their parents.