As clinicians we seek a relationship profile that can measure the very specific strengths and challenges that our clients are facing in their relationship and in their individual lives. Dr. Gottman's lab began designing many of these assessment scales in 1980 and it has taken decades of diligent research to harness this knowledge into a streamlined assessment tool. That is the accomplishment of the Sound Relationship House Theory and other measures of The Gottman Relationship Checkup.
Before this tool was built, Dr. Gottman needed to know that The Sound Relationship House questionnaires, which are included in the Gottman Relationship Checkup, accurately measure what they purport to measure. For example, if there is a challenge in Fondness and Admiration for one partner but not the other, he needed to be confident that we would actually see less respect and more contempt in a SPAFF coding of the couple’s Conflict Interaction and/or a Buehlman Coding of the couple’s Oral History Interview. He is delighted to report that this is indeed the case. The Gottman Relationship Checkup contains several additional questionnaires, some of which are in the process of being tested and validated. Additional information about the psychometric properties of the questionnaires may be found on the psychometrics page.