Relating Well for a Richer Life
WE NEED TO STAY CONNECTED
In an increasingly interconnected society we are facing an epidemic of loneliness. A 2021 WHO study found that worldwide, almost a third of older adults report being lonely. A 2024 APA poll revealed that 1 in 3 Americans feel lonely once a week and 10% every day. In 2023 the US Surgeon General declared loneliness a public health epidemic and called for a national plan of action to combat loneliness and its detrimental physical and mental effects.
Social disconnection has been identified as a key determinant of health that is as harmful as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day or consuming six drinks of alcohol a day. Chronic loneliness has been linked to numerous physical and mental disorders including chronic stress, high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes, as well as sleep disturbance, dementia, substance abuse, suicidal ideation, anxiety, depression and poor subjective well-being.
BUT HOW CAN WE MEASURE CONNECTION?
THE SELF-CENTRIC RELATIONAL SYSTEM
The Self-Centric Relational System (SCRS) is a tool designed to illuminate key aspects of an individual's relational network. It creates a graphic representation of a client’s relational world from their point of view. Mental health professionals, life coaches, and medical clinicians use the SCRS to explore the health of their client’s relational networks and assist them to make desired changes and improve their quality of life.
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A SNAPSHOT OFYOUR CLIENT'S RELATIONAL WORLD
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A person's relational network is their greatest resource and contributor to quality of life
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All mental health issues involve relationships.
The quality of a person's relational network
directly affects their psychological and physical
health
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Assessing and assisting a client to understand their relational world is the single most effective intervention you can make
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Assessing your client's relational world with the SCRS at the start of your collaboration will save valuable time and resources and get to core issues much more efficiently
MORE ABOUT THE SCRS
Make an initial assessment of the quality and health of your client's relational world. Accurate assessment is essential to Measurement Based Care. The SCRS graph provides an intuitive rendering of your client's relational world in one easy to grasp picture. The SCRS Interpretation Guide allows understanding of the graph in a few minutes and provides easy, guided initial self-analysis with exploratory questions.
Develop treatment plans with the SCRS graph and report to address: improving the quality of relationships in the Intimate Relational Group and Inner Circle, targeting specific relationships of importance to your client's mental health and social/interpersonal adjustment, adding healthy activities and hobbies, and more.
Create periodic updates of your client's relational world in order to track treatment progress, modify treatment goals, create new goals, and illustrate markers of success. The series of SCRS graphs will reveal powerful evidence of relational change.
“The SCRS assessment is a valuable tool. It provides a unique awareness about how our relationships impact and influence life. Our clients have found it as a helpful resource.”
AARON KAMPMAN
Founder and CEO, Align
Relationships have a major impact on mental health, but it is not easy to get an overall understanding of an individual's relational patterns that influence their well-being. As a psychotherapist, I find the SCRS to be an easy to use, interactive, and powerful therapeutic tool that helps an individual visualize and evaluate the impact of relationships (past and present) in their life.
Victoria A Gossens, LCSW