Family therapy

Cards (5)

  • Family therapy takes place with all or some members of a family
    It aims to improve the communications within the family and reduce stress living as a family
  • reduces negative emotions
    Family therapy aims to reduce levels of expressed emotion
    Especially negative emotions, such as anger and guilt which creates stress
    Reducing stress is important to reduce the likelihood of a relapse
  • Improves the family's ability to help
    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 schizophrenia.
    A further aim is to ensure that family members achieve a balance between caring for the individual with schizophrenia and maintaining their own lives.
  • A strength of family therapy for schizophrenia is evidence of its effectiveness.
    A review of studies concluded that family therapy was one of the most consistently effective treatments available for schizophrenia. In particular relapse rates were found to be reduced, typically by 50-60%.
    concluded that using family therapy as mental health initially starts to decline is particularly promising.
    This means that family therapy is likely to be of beneft to people with both early and late schizophrenia.
  • A strength of family therapy for schizophrenia is the benefits for all family members.
    A review of evidence concluded that these effects are important because families provide the bulk of care for people with schizophrenia.
    By strengthening the functioning of a whole family, family therapy lessens the negative impact of schizophrenia on other family members and strengthens the ability of the family to support the person with schizophrenia.
    This means that family therapy has wider benefits beyond the obvious positive impact on
    the identifed patient.