Free Therapist Training›Family Therapy Toolkit›Circular Questions
Last updated: November 11, 2026
Circular questions are questions a family therapist asks to bring relationships, differences and sequences into view. Rather than asking one person to describe a symptom, the therapist asks each family member in turn who worries most, what happens between two people when a third is upset, or how things were different before a change. The Milan team of Mara Selvini Palazzoli, Luigi Boscolo, Gianfranco Cecchin and Giuliana Prata made circularity one of three guidelines for the interviewer in 1980, and Peggy Penn and Karl Tomm developed the questions further in the years that followed.
The bank below has 64 questions grouped into eight types, seven circular and one reflexive, with a note on what each type is for and a table of Tomm's four kinds of question. An example from a family session follows it. The bank is part of the Sentio MFT program's free family therapy toolkit.
An optional template from the Sentio MFT program's family therapy toolkit, free to adapt.
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Difference questions about people
These ask how family members differ, which shows how each person sees the others and who carries which role.
- Who in the family worries most about how things are going for Ava? Who worries least?
- Who is most upset when the arguments start? Who seems least affected?
- Who is best at calming things down at home? Who is second best?
- Who agrees with your mother that this started at school? Who sees it another way?
- Who in the family is most like your grandfather? In what way?
- Who notices first when your brother is having a hard day?
- Who would be most relieved if the arguments stopped?
- Who finds it easiest to say no to your daughter?
Difference questions about relationships
These compare relationships rather than people, which brings alliances and distance into view.
- Who gets along best in the family these days? Who has the hardest time?
- Is your mother closer to you or to your brother?
- Who is your stepfather closest to in the house? Has that changed?
- Which two people in the family argue most? Which two never seem to argue?
- Who does your sister go to when she is upset: your mother or your father?
- Is the relationship between your parents closer or more distant than it was a year ago?
- Who in the family is closest to your grandmother?
- When the children need permission, which parent do they ask first?
Difference questions about time
These compare now with before or after, which locates when a pattern began and what changed around it.
- Were things between you and your daughter better or worse before you started night shifts?
- When did the arguments about the phone start? What else was happening then?
- Is your son more or less involved with the family than he was last year?
- Before your grandfather died, who did you talk to when something went wrong? And now?
- Has the family been closer or more distant since the move?
- Since your father moved away, who has taken over the things he used to do?
- Are the mornings easier or harder than they were at the start of the school year?
- What was different about the weeks when things went well?
Behavioral effect and sequence questions
These trace what happens between people, step by step, so that a problem in one person becomes a sequence the whole family takes part in.
- When Ava refuses to hand over her phone, what does Chris do? And then what does Ava do?
- When your mother and stepfather argue, what does your brother do?
- After the shouting stops, who speaks first? What do they say?
- When your daughter misses school, who finds out first? What do they do next?
- What does your father do when your mother says she is worried?
- When your son goes to his room, who goes after him, if anyone?
- What happens the next morning after a bad night?
- When your grandmother gives advice about the children, how does your stepfather respond?
Triadic questions
These ask one person to comment on the relationship between two others, which lets a family hear how its relationships look from the outside.
- Ben, what do you notice happens between your mom and Ava when Chris is at work?
- Tyler, how do your dad and Ava get along when your stepmom isn't home?
- What do you think your mother feels when your stepfather and sister argue?
- How does your grandmother react when your parents disagree about rules?
- Who do you think your brother sides with when the arguments start?
- What do your parents do differently when they agree about something?
- When your mom and your dad talk on the phone, what happens in the house afterward?
- If your sister were here, what would she say about how your parents handle bedtime?
Ranking and comparison questions
These ask people to put family members in order, which turns vague impressions into differences everyone can discuss.
- If you ranked everyone from most to least upset about the move, how would the order go?
- Who in the family is most likely to apologize first after an argument? Who is least likely?
- On a scale from one to ten, how worried is each person about Ava's grades?
- Who spends the most time with Ben? Who spends the least?
- Who in the family would most want things to stay the way they are?
- Rank the family from who talks most at dinner to who talks least.
- Who would be most surprised if Ava went to every class next week?
- Who in the family keeps the most secrets? Who keeps the fewest?
Hypothetical and future questions
These invite the family to imagine change, which brings out hopes, fears and the costs of the problem going away.
- If the arguments stopped tomorrow, what would be different between your mom and your stepdad?
- If Ava went to every class next month, who would notice first? What would they do?
- Suppose your grandmother stopped calling every day. Who would miss it most?
- If your father moved back to California, how would things change at home?
- When Ava leaves home in a few years, how will the house be different?
- If your parents agreed on the rules, what would you do then?
- Imagine a year from now when things are better. What would a normal evening look like?
- If someone in the family decided to change first, who would it be?
Reflexive questions
Tomm described these as questions meant to help family members reflect on new possibilities and draw on their own resources. In his 1988 scheme they are a separate kind from circular questions; the bank includes them because therapists often ask them alongside circular ones.
- If your daughter knew how much you worry about her, what do you think she would do differently?
- What would your stepdad need to see from you to believe you want things to be better?
- If you were to show Ava you are on her side and still hold the rule, what might that look like?
- What do you think your son learns about families from watching these arguments?
- If the arguing were a way of trying to solve a problem, what problem might it be solving?
- What would your grandfather have said about how the family is handling this?
- Which of the strengths that got you through the divorce could help now?
- What would have to happen for each of you to feel the family was on the same side?
Four kinds of question, by intent (after Tomm, 1988)
| Question type | The therapist's intent | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Lineal | To investigate: gather facts and definitions from the family. | What brings you here today? How long has this been happening? |
| Circular | To explore: understand patterns and connections between people. | When Ava gets angry, what does Chris do? Who notices first? |
| Strategic | To correct: steer the family toward what the therapist thinks is right, often with a leading or confronting question. | Isn't it time the two of you agreed on the phone rule before Ava asks? |
| Reflexive | To facilitate: help family members generate new views for themselves. | If you were to try something different the next time, what might it be? |
Ask each person in turn rather than letting one member answer for the family, and let each answer suggest the next question. Replace the names in the examples with the family's own.
What Do Circular Questions Look Like in a Session?
The table below follows six questions from the second session with the Hale-Carter family, the invented blended family used throughout the toolkit. The family arrived describing a daughter who would not follow rules; the questions turned that description into a sequence everyone could see.
| Question | Asked of | Answer | What it showed |
|---|---|---|---|
| When Ava refuses to hand over her phone, what does Chris do? | Ben | "He says it louder. Then he just leaves." | Chris withdraws after one attempt, so the rule is never enforced. |
| And then what does Ava do? | Ben | "She texts Mom." | Jenna is brought in from work; the sequence runs through her. |
| Who is most upset when that happens? | Jenna | "Me. I'm at work and can't do anything." | Jenna carries the evening conflicts into her shift. |
| Who is least upset? | Ava | "Ben. He just games." | Ben copes by withdrawing, which the family reads as indifference. |
| Were evenings better or worse before the night shifts? | Chris | "Better. Jenna handled it." | The pattern followed the change in the parenting arrangement in August. |
| If the two of you agreed on the phone rule before Ava asked, what would she do? | Jenna | "Probably test it once. Then maybe stop." | Jenna can imagine a united front working, a lead for the next session. |
Six questions in the second session, asked of four people, turned "Ava won't follow rules" into a sequence the family could see: a rule from Chris, an appeal to Jenna, a reversal, then Chris's withdrawal and a bigger outburst the next time. The therapist's working hypothesis, that the adults have not yet agreed how to parent together, came from the family's answers rather than from the therapist's guess.
What Are Circular Questions?
The Milan team described circularity as the interviewer's ability to follow the family's feedback, asking about relationships and differences and letting each answer shape the next question. A circular question assumes that a problem is maintained by a pattern among people rather than located in one of them, and it asks family members to describe that pattern from where each of them stands. A question such as "Who is most upset when the arguing starts?" invites a comparison, gives each person a voice, and lets everyone hear how the others see the family.
Peggy Penn showed how circular questions can track the way alliances in a family shift over time and how those shifts relate to the problem. Karl Tomm divided circular questions into difference questions and contextual questions, among them behavioral-effect questions, which ask how one person's action affects the others, and in 1988 he set circular questions beside three other kinds according to the therapist's intent.
Types of Circular Questions
Circular questions have been sorted in several ways. Colette Fleuridas, Thorana Nelson and David Rosenthal, writing for trainees in 1986, grouped them as problem definition, sequence of interaction, comparison and classification, and interventive questions, each of which can be asked about the present, the past or a hypothetical future. The bank uses eight working types drawn from that literature.
Difference questions compare people ("Who worries most?"), relationships ("Who gets along best?") or times ("Were things better before the move?"). They turn general complaints into distinctions a family can discuss. Behavioral effect and sequence questions trace what one person does, how another responds and what happens next, which turns a problem in one person into a pattern the whole family takes part in.
Triadic questions ask one person to comment on the relationship between two others, so that a son can describe what happens between his mother and his sister. Ranking questions ask members to put the family in order, from most to least worried or most to least likely to apologize first. Hypothetical and future questions, which Penn wrote about in 1985, invite the family to imagine change and what it would cost or bring. Reflexive questions, in Tomm's sense, are meant to help family members reflect and find new possibilities for themselves. In his 1988 scheme they are a separate kind from circular questions; the bank includes them because therapists often ask them alongside circular ones.
Lineal, Circular, Strategic and Reflexive Questions
Tomm sorted therapists' questions along two dimensions: whether the therapist's assumptions are lineal or circular, and whether the intent is mainly to understand or to influence. Lineal questions investigate, as when a therapist asks what the problem is and how long it has lasted. Circular questions explore patterns. Strategic questions try to move the family in a direction the therapist has chosen, and reflexive questions try to help the family generate new views of its own. Each kind has its place; the risk is in using one kind without knowing it, such as a strategic question that sounds like a lecture.
How to Ask Circular Questions
- Ask one person at a time, and ask the same question of more than one person: the differences between answers are the point.
- Follow the answer. Each response suggests the next question, so a fixed list works best as a starting point rather than a script.
- Stay curious about every member's view. The Milan team's third guideline, neutrality, asks the therapist not to side with any one member.
- Use the family's own words and names, and keep questions short enough for a child to answer.
- Do not use circular questions to explore a relationship when one member may be at risk from another member who is in the room. Screen for violence first, and see family members separately when screening calls for it.
Practice next: staying out of triangles
Circular questions keep a therapist curious about every member's view, and that curiosity is tested the moment one member asks the therapist to say who is right.
Watch episode 13: Avoiding TriangulationSystemic therapy pagePractice set in the toolkit
Rehearse the triangle statements in the toolkit's practice set, answering each one with a circular question instead of a verdict.
Keep reading
Genogram Template, a three-generation map the questions help fill in
Structural Family Therapy Mapping, turning the sequence the questions reveal into a map
Family Therapy Progress Note Template, recording questions and responses in a family session note
Systemic Therapy, free Practice Time episodes on systemic skills
Frequently Asked Questions
What are circular questions in family therapy?
Circular questions ask family members about differences, relationships and sequences, such as who worries most, what happens between two people when a third is upset, or how things changed after an event, rather than about one person's traits.
Who developed circular questioning?
The Milan team of Selvini Palazzoli, Boscolo, Cecchin and Prata introduced circularity as a guideline for the interviewer in 1980. Peggy Penn and Karl Tomm developed circular questions further in the 1980s.
What is an example of a circular question?
"When your sister and your mother argue, what does your father do?" asks one person to describe a sequence between three others, which is typical of a circular question.
What is the difference between linear and circular questions?
A linear, or lineal, question investigates facts and causes, such as what the problem is and when it started. A circular question explores patterns and relationships, such as who notices the problem first and how others respond.
What are reflexive questions?
Karl Tomm described reflexive questions as questions intended to help family members reflect on their situation and generate new possibilities for themselves, such as asking what a parent might do differently if they knew how worried their child was.
References
Fleuridas, C., Nelson, T. S., & Rosenthal, D. M. (1986). The evolution of circular questions: Training family therapists. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 12(2), 113–127. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-0606.1986.tb01629.x
Penn, P. (1982). Circular questioning. Family Process, 21(3), 267–280. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1545-5300.1982.00267.x
Penn, P. (1985). Feed-forward: Future questions, future maps. Family Process, 24(3), 299–310. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1545-5300.1985.00299.x
Selvini Palazzoli, M., Boscolo, L., Cecchin, G., & Prata, G. (1980). Hypothesizing—circularity—neutrality: Three guidelines for the conductor of the session. Family Process, 19(1), 3–12. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1545-5300.1980.00003.x
Tomm, K. (1985). Circular interviewing: A multifaceted clinical tool. In D. Campbell & R. Draper (Eds.), Applications of systemic family therapy: The Milan approach (pp. 33–45). Grune & Stratton.
Tomm, K. (1987). Interventive interviewing: Part II. Reflexive questioning as a means to enable self-healing. Family Process, 26(2), 167–183. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1545-5300.1987.00167.x
Tomm, K. (1988). Interventive interviewing: Part III. Intending to ask lineal, circular, strategic, or reflexive questions? Family Process, 27(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1545-5300.1988.00001.x
