family dysfunction

• • Research support for double bind: Berger (1965) found evidence of more double bind statements in families of schizophrenics than non-schizphrenics. This reserach has Useful Applications: The explanations of family dysfunction had led to the development of family therapies. Pharoah et al. developed a type of family therapy and reviewed 53 studies in order to understand the effectiveness of it for families of schizophrenia sufferers concluded that there is moderate evidence to show it significantly reduces hospital readmission over the course of a year and improves quality of life for patients and their families. SOTIVOT
• • reichman and Bateson argue there are issues with this reserach as it is considered socially sensitive and could have ethical implications. For example as it can create a sense of parent blaming. Parents have already suffered enough by living with a child who has schizophrenia. Parents of schizophrenics are typically life long carers. There are serious ethical concerns in blaming the family, particularly as there is little evidence compared with others like biological upon which to base this. Gender bias is also an issue as the mother tends to be blamed the most, which means such research is highly socially sensitive. This suggests that the research therefore does not protect individuals from harm.
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  • Robust research findings such as that by Kavanagh show that there is a high relapse rate (48% meta-analytical study (LImitations of meta ) for schizophrenic patients who live with high EE families (compared to 21% for those who live with low EE families) this is further supported by tienari

  However : individual differences…Not all schizophrenics are equally as vulnerable to high levels of EE. Altorfer (1998) found 25% schizophrenics showed no physiological response to stressful comments from family members