Family Therapy

• Family therapy seeks to reduce negative emotions
• Family therapy aims to reduce levels of expressed emotions, especially negative emotions such as anger and guilt which create stress
• Reducing stress is important to reduce the likelihood of relapse
• The therapist encourages family members to form a therapeutic alliance whereby they all agree on the aims of therapy
• The therapist also tries to improve families beliefs about and behaviour towards SZ
• A further aim is to ensure that family members achieve a balance between caring for the individual with SZ and maintaining their own lives