family therapy Flashcards
what is family therapy
the name given to a range of interventions aimed at the family of someone with a mental disorder in order to provide support to members to make home life less stressful and reduce rehospitalisation
what strategies does family therapy use
aims to reduce the level of expressed emotions within the family as it is associated with increased relapse rates
1) psychoeducation- helping the person and careers understand and be better able to deal with the illness
2) enhancing the family’s ability to anticipate and solve problems
3) encouraging family to set limits whilst maintaining some degree of separation when needed
4) actively involving the patient in the treatment to overcome suspicions and paranoia
evaluate family therapy
1) research support- Pharoah et al. (2010) reviewed 53 studies to investigate the effectiveness of family therapy, compared to treatment using antipsychotics alone. Findings showed that family therapy reduced the risk of relapse and a reduction in hospital admission during treatment and in the 24 months after. In addition, some studies reported an improvement in the overall mental state of those undergoing family therapy.
2) issue and debate- nature nurture
3) may not be a worthwhile technique- research found that the therapy failed to show any better outcomes than those individuals who just had carers. They both had low relapse rates and most displayed low levels of expressed emotion, this suggests that family therapy or intervention may not improve outcomes compared to standard treatment and implies it is not more helpful than what is already used raising issues if the paint would be better off with no therapy, however this does demonstrate the raising awareness over the importance of expressed emotions if carers lack its display
4) research methods- in pharaohs study there were methodological issues, he found that studies claimed to use random allocation when they did not which means some of the studies in the meta-analysis may have been exaggerating effects of family therapy decreasing validity and reliability of results
