Exploring the dynamic nature of "us": An integrative approach to relationship cognition

Most psychiatric disorders are associated with problems in interpersonal relationships. This is not surprising because people's relationships with others are an influential and integral component of their lives. The cognitive representations of these relationships can be important in understanding these relationships, and both the attachment and relational schema approaches have helped to better understand the nature of these cognitions. The attachment approach is widely researched and established, but it struggles to fully assess the content of relationship knowledge. The relational schema approach provides a strong framework for assessing the content of relationship knowledge, but it does not currently have established measures for this content. In this article, the authors suggest that these two approaches may be particularly suited for integration, and they propose a comprehensive model of relationship cognition. Issues involving the measurement of relational knowledge and future research directions are discussed. Finally, the clinical utility of the proposed model is discussed.