Abstract
Elaborates four princples developed by family systems models of psychotherapy to order data from clients' family research: cataloging folklore of the extended family; recording the influence of sex and ordinal position of siblings in parent-child transactions in the network; recognition of any given family member's tendency to assume a consistent position on the Drama Triangle (S. Karpman) in stressful family situations; and identification of inter-generational and inter-individual boundaries. Shows the compatibility of these principles with life script analysis, and explains clients' understanding of script origins as enhanced through use of these principles described.