Supportive relationships: Fact or fancy?

The very close relationships (VCRs) of a sample of married women living in London are described using a new instrument (SESS) measuring self evaluation and social support. Only a third of the women had a ‘true’ relationship (i.e., one characterized by a high level of interaction and intimate confiding) with someone identified as ‘very close’ yet living outside the home. It is argued that recent research has failed to differentiate between those qualities of relationships which are actively supportive and those which simply reflect ‘a search for attachment’ and that this is the source of the failure to find an association between social support and psychiatric state. In the current survey there is an association between- the type of VCR and both the respondents’ positive evaluation of themselves and their psychiatric state. Such associations do not emerge when we look at the strength of the respondents’ felt attachment. There is some suggestion that early loss of a father is associated with chronic anxiety and an inability to form a true VCR.