ABSTRACT
First developed by Procter (1987), the bow-tie interview is situated at the juncture of the personal-agentic and dyadic-relational levels of the epigenetic model, linking personal processes of meaning making to the delicate social ecology of intimate interpersonal relationships that sustain them. It is particularly useful as a means of clarifying complex interactive sequences in con¯icted couples and families, and in suggesting a roadmap for intervention. As such, it might be viewed as a variety of circular questioningÐtherapeutic questions that reveal relationships between members of a familyÐas pioneered by family therapists sharing a concern with the social construction of meaning (Hoffman, 1992). Like the strategies of these postmodern family therapists, bow-tie work entails elaborating the position of each member of the problematic system or subsystem, de®ned as the integrated stance that each person takes at the levels of construction and action. That is, at any given moment of interaction, family members both construe one another in certain ways, and behave in a way that is coherent with that construction. At the same time, the behaviors or actions of each serve to validate or invalidate the other's construction of their relationship, in a seamless cycle of meaning and action that has no clear beginning or end. This emphasis on how an individual's construction of meaning and action dovetails with that of relevant others highlights the strongly social and relational character of constructivist therapy, in contrast to the more individualistic emphases of other cognitive approaches.
