Family Therapy - Treatment

Question 1

What is Family therapy?

Answer 1

A psychological therapy carried out with all or some members of a family with the aim of
improving their communication and reducing the stress of living as a family.
Family therapy makes use of a number of strategies, including:

Psychoeducation - helping the person and their carers to understand and be better
able to deal with the illness.

Forming an alliance with relatives who care for the person with schizophrenia.

Reducing the emotional climate within the family and the burden of care for family
members.

Family therapy is commonly used in conjunction with drug treatment and outpatient clinical care.
-During family therapy sessions, the individual with schizophrenia is encouraged to talk to their family and explain what sort of support they find helpful - and what makes things
worse for them.

Question 2

A03 - Lenoir et al - Effectiveness

Answer 2

• Family therapy may be more appropriate in the mid to late stages of development.
• Lenoir et al (2001) found that family therapy was not effective within the first year of onset of
  schizophrenia.
  -This may be due to an initial reluctance of the family to accept the severity and consequences of the disorder.
  -Hence, family therapy is possibly not appropriate in the early stages of schizophrenia.

Question 3

A03 - Not Family Dynamics

Answer 3

• Rather than family therapy working due to an improvement in family dynamic, maybe the
  improvements are more to do with the fact that it increases medication compliance.
• Patients are more likely to reap the benefits of medication because they are more likely to
  comply with their medication regime, whether this is due to a family’s knowledge of a
  carer’s knowledge.

Question 4

A03 - Returning to a positive vs negative family

Answer 4

• Research has consistently found that high levels of hostility and excessive criticism within the
  families of patients with schizophrenia are associated with relapse and negative outcomes (Vaughan et al, 1992).
  -Further, 65% of patients with schizophrenia return from hospital to live with their families.
• This figure is far higher than in the past, and means that establishing a secure and relatively stress-free family environment for patients with schizophrenia is more important than ever.