ABSTRACT
A somewhat related technique is the self-confrontation method or SCM (Hermans, 2002), an approach to personality investigation in which clients are asked to formulate ``valuations,'' or positive/ negative assessments of important events and circumstances in their lives, and then rate them on a set of provided scales that measure a range of emotional responses to these events, as well as the degree of personal agency or communion with other people implied by them. This assessment begins with certain prompting questions to elicit a set of 6 or 8 valuations, such as: ``Was there something in your past that has been of major importance for your life and that still plays an important part today?'' or, ``Is there a goal or objective that you expect to play an important role in your future life?'' In response to the ®rst question, for example, a client might say, ``I've always tried to `be there' for friends and family, even when this has hurt me in terms of my commitment to my work or career.'' Ratings on the provided scales might then suggest that this valuation is associated with strong positive emotions such as love and joy and high levels of communion or connection with others. In contrast, the same client might assign quite different meanings to the competing valuation, ``I am having to limit my involvement with my wife and children in order to attend to the consistent demands of my boss and clients,'' rating it as involving strong negative affect (e.g., despondency and disappointment) and low communion (e.g., low intimacy and tenderness). A somewhat simpli®ed adaptation of this method appears in Table 2.
