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The Bene-Anthony Family Relations Test is designed to assess the child's perception of family relations using projective techniques. This article describes the test and background to its development. The validity of the test is limited by the content of some items and their categorization, though there is evidence that the test can distinguish between populations that differ on other related variables. A survey of professionals who use the test is described. Despite their enthusiasm for it, the majority of respondents had modified the test in some way, and 86% regularly rephrased at least one item from the test. There were several criticisms of the test, including the positive scoring of 'sexualized items'. The respondents were also inconsistent in their administration and scoring of the test.
This test is used less frequently in research, possibly because it is not perceived as a sufficiently robust psychometric instrument. However, there is a danger of 'throwing away the baby with the bath water'. Recommendations are made for the development of a test that reliably assesses the child's perception of the emotional content of relations.
The Bene-Anthony Family Relations Test (BAFRT) is a projective test that assesses the child's perception of family relations. Eva Bene, a psychologist, and James Anthony, a psychiatrist, first published the test at the Institute of Psychiatry, London in 1957 (Bene & Anthony, 1957). It has since been revised (Bene, 1978) and reprinted (Bene, 1985). The BAFRT was developed at a time of two converging philosophies in child psychiatry and psychology. One was the use of projective techniques in the assessment of a patient's emotional perception and interpretation of the world. The other was a growing recognition of the need to view the child, who had been brought to the clinic as the identified patient, in the context of the family and that the problem may not lie solely in the child.
The history of projective techniques dates from 1910, with the publication by Kent and Rosanoff (1910) of the `word list'. Much later, Drever (1964) defines the term projective as `the interpretation of situations and events by reading into them our own experience'. The term projective test inaccurately implies a standardized psychometric instrument, the term projective techniques being preferred (Semeonoff, 1976).
The quality...