The Double Moon Drawing in front of the challenge of research

The first paragraph presents an overview of qualitative research in which the DMD was used together with other different tools, such as the self-report type, showing how this instrument can be applied fruitfully in different fields, also through the choice of a specific version. The different areas of qualitative research presented concern respectively the themes of fostering, adoption, divorce, family reconstitution, and immigration. As regards family fostering, three different studies are described, aimed, respectively, the first at foster parents and their foster children, the second at foster psycho-social workers, the third at foster siblings in joint and disjointed foster care. Regarding adoption, two different studies concern the first adoptive parents and their adopted child; the second adults adopted children, who in turn became parents. As regards divorce, the research subjects were young adults, children of divorced parents; while regarding the reconstituted families, the subjects were biological and step-parent with a child of a previous marriage. Regarding immigration, the interviewed subjects were immigrant adolescents, to deepen their representation of their family world in the new context. The diverse qualitative research projects are focused on one or more specific levels of family boundaries – individual, generational, intra-systemic, or inter-systemic – depending on the peculiarity of the in-depth theme. The main objective of the second paragraph is to connect the qualitative analysis of the data of the DMD to quantitative analysis, in order to have a more informative and reliable picture of family relationships. Starting from the selection of specific quantitative indicators, such as topological distance, the relative size of the used symbols etc., we built a new brief scale to code the child’s DMD and measure the level of “integration” of family boundaries perceived by the child. We included the indicators which were the most representative and relevant to the construct of boundaries integration, and easier to quantify. In total, seven indicators were selected and used as items to calculate the level of relationship boundaries integration. With the aim of exemplifying the use of this coding system, we take up two cases (one refers to an adopted child and the other to a child with separated parents). The coding process was carried out by two independent observers, and through the interrater comparison a high convergence was observed between the scores attributed. Psychometric properties of the scale (i.e., factorial structure and reliability) were assessed and correlations between DMD scores and family boundary ambiguity in a group of adolescents from separated families were calculated to assess the construct validity.