Psychological treatments: Family therapy

Question 1

What is family therapy ?

Answer 1

• aims to improve the quality of communication and interaction between family members
• takes places with the family and the identified patient

Question 2

How does family therapy help ?

Answer 2

Pharoh

Reduces negatove emotions:
- reduces levels of expressed emotion
- e.g. anger and guilt
- by reducing stress it reduces the risk of relapse

Improve the families ability to help:
- encourages a therapeutic alliance between patient and family
- all members agree on the aims of therapy
- improves the families attitudes towards sz
- helps families balance their own lives and looking after someone with sz

Question 3

What was Burbach’s model for helping families deal with sz ?

Answer 3

Phase 1 = Sharing basic information - providing emotional and practical support
Phase 2 = Working out what resources the family can and can’t offer
Phase 3 = Mutual understanding between patient and family
Phase 4 = Identifying unhelpful patterns of interaction
Phase 5 = Stress management techniques
Phase 6 = Relapse prevention planning
Phase 7 = maintenance for the future

Question 4

What are the strengths of family therapy ?

Answer 4

Effectivness:
- McFarlane
- One of the most consistently effective treatments for sz
- Reduces relapse rates by 50-60%
- Helps those with both full-blown sz and those with minor symptoms
- Therefore it can helps a wide range of people

Benefits the whole family:
- not just beneficial for the identified patient but also the whole family
- Lobban + Barrowclough
- by strengthening the functioning of the whole family, it improves the help that can be provided to the identified patient
- therefore there are wider benefits than just helping the identified patients

Question 5

What is a limitation of family therapy ?

Answer 5

Practicality =
- time consuming
- takes up time for multiple people over a period that could be up to a year long
- means that there are high drop-out rates