family

• Family therapy aims to improve the quality of communication and interaction between family members.
• A high expressed emotion (EE) environment causes more relapses in a schizophrenic patient
• Pharoah et al. (2010) identified a range of strategies to improve the functioning of a family that has a schizophrenic member:

  1. Reduce negative emotions
  2. Improves the family's ability to help
• Reduce negative emotions

  • Aims to reduce expressed emotion levels, especially negative ones (anger, guilt) which create a stress environment
  • This will reduce the likelihood of a relapse
• Improves the family’s ability to help

  • The therapist encourages the family to form a therapeutic alliance where they all agree on the aims of the therapy
  • The therapist may try to improve beliefs towards schizophrenia and ensure a balance is created between looking after the ‘patient’ and maintaining their own individual lives
• Burbach’s (2018) Model of Practice is a seven-phase model for working with families
• Burbach's (2018) Model of Practice:

  1. Sharing basic information & providing emotional support
  2. Identifying resources & what family members can/cannot offer
  3. Encourage a mutual understanding between members, so that everyone can express their feelings freely
  4. Identifying unhelpful patterns of interaction
  5. Skills training (i.e.: stress management techniques)
  6. Relapse prevention planning
  7. Maintenance for the future
• Specific family therapy techniques:

  • psychoeducation
  • communication training
  • problem solving
  • boundary setting
  • emotional regulation
• McFarlane (2016) concluded that family therapy was one of the most consistently effective treatments available for schizophrenia. Relapse rates reduced by 50-60%.