The diagnosis and evaluation of families applying for family therapy is necessary to identify problems in their relationships that can be effectively integrated into treatment. In the Family Distance Doll Placement technique, a diagnostic tool for assessing patterns of closeness and distance within the family, parents are asked to make up stories about a family involving five different emotional themes, and to place a family of four dolls to represent what is happening in their story. Research involving 30 families divided into groups, with 10 families in each group, had shown that parents of emotionally disturbed boys and parents of boys with learning problems differed from parents of normal boys in their use of particular types of doll placements. The present study showed that these parents also differed in the kinds of family relationships that doll placements were used to portray. Parents in the two symptomatic groups told stories in which family members were not fully individuated. Mothers of the emotionally disturbed boys portrayed intensely ambivalent family relationships, with superficial closeness between several family members dependent on the separation of another member from the family. Parents of boys with learning problems emphasized family "togetherness," banding together and protecting the family from a threatening external community. In contrast, parents of normal boys perceived family members as individuals who felt close to one another and integrated into the community. (Stories told by parents are appended.) (Author/NB)