Episode 003 - Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Social Behavior (SASB), part 1

🎙️ Episode Overview:
This episode introduces Structural Analysis of Social Behavior (SASB)—the core descriptive system underlying Interpersonal Reconstructive Therapy (IRT). Dr. Ken Critchfield and Dr. Eliza Stucker-Rozovsky explain how SASB maps human behavior and inner experience across three dimensions, showing how interpersonal patterns shape both our relationships and our self-treatment.

🧩 Major Themes and Discussion Points:

1. What SASB Is
   SASB is a systematic model for describing interpersonal behavior—how people treat others and themselves. It is a three-dimensional coordinate system that helps clinicians and researchers capture the complexity of human interaction without reducing it to vague intuition.

2. Three Dimensions of SASB

• Focus: Determines who the behavior is about—focus on other, self, or self-in-relation-to-self (the “introject”).

• Affiliation: Ranges from love to hate, describing the warmth or hostility of the action.

• Interdependence: Ranges from interdependence (enmeshment, co-coordination: control, submission) to independence (differentiation: freedom, separation, granting or taking autonomy).

Together, these axes create a “map” of interpersonal behavior—allowing therapists to locate any interaction in a consistent conceptual space.

1. Why It Matters
   SASB helps therapists go beyond intuition by identifying patterns objectively. It reduces bias by focusing on observable behaviors rather than personal impressions or cultural connotations of words like “control,” “trust,” or “care.”

2. Language and Cultural Nuance
   Ken and Eliza discuss how language can mislead us—terms like “self-care” or “control” can mean different things to different people. SASB clarifies these by tying them to specific, observable behaviors.

3. Rigidity vs. Flexibility
   Healthy functioning involves behavioral flexibility—being able to move fluidly within the SASB model based on context, especially when the baseline includes friendliness. In addition to hostility or extremes of interdependence, pathology often reflects rigidity: patterns that repeat regardless of situation, including when they are problematic.

4. Complementarity and Patterns
   People naturally elicit complementary behaviors in others (e.g., control invites submission, and vice versa). Recognizing these dynamics helps therapists understand stuck relational loops and guide clients toward more adaptive positions.

💡  Key Takeaways:

• SASB provides a structured, three-dimensional way to describe interpersonal and intrapsychic behavior.

• Focus, Affiliation, and Interdependence map the range of human relating in terms of “who, how warm, and how connected”.

• Flexibility, not friendliness alone, marks healthy adaptation.

• Understanding SASB deepens case formulation in IRT by linking present behavior to early learning and attachment patterns.

📚 Next Episode:
Ken and Eliza preview a deeper dive into SASB’s applications in therapy—how to identify patterns, interpret the “copy process,” and understand the logic behind rigid interpersonal cycles.

⏰ Timestamps/Notes:

3 axes of SASB: Focus, Affiliation, and Interdependence

(08:52) - Axes of SASB

Axis 1 - Focus: Is this about you, or is this about me?   

(10:00) - Focus on other

(10:35) - Focus on self relative to other

(11:35) - Focus on self

Axis 2 - Affiliation: Are we in friendly space, or are we in hostile space?  Axis 3 - Interdependence: Do we go our separate ways or do we share?

(12:56) - Describing SASB visually, with axes of affiliation (13:00) and interdependence (19:17)

(26:52) - Goals of IRT using SASB - flexibility

(30:40) - The “dances” within SASB 

-Principles of similarity, opposites, and complementarity

(38:15) - Baseline of healthy relatedness

📓 References:

Critchfield, K. L., & Benjamin, L. S. (2024). Structural analysis of social behavior: A primer for clinical use. American Psychological Association (APA).