AO3 - Family Therapy

• Research to support family therapy as a treatment for schizophrenia was conducted by Leff et al. They compared family therapy with routine outpatient care for schizophrenics and found that in the first 9 months of treatment 50% of those receiving routine care relapsed, compared with only 8% of those receiving family therapy. This suggests that family therapy is an effective therapy for treating schizophrenics.
• A limitation of family therapy as a treatment of schizophrenia is that it does not get to the root cause of schizophrenia. It works by helping to reduce the stress of living with schizophrenia in a family, for both the patient and family members, this does not eliminate the symptoms completely. This questions the appropriateness and effectiveness of the therapy as when the therapy stops patients could relapse, which is what Hogarty et al found in a follow up study of patients who had received family therapy.
• An alternative therapy that may be useful is art therapy. This is less well known. However art therapy takes place with a specially trained art teacher who has worked with patients with sz and allows patients to interpret their emotions, and express them without using words, in a safe environment. It also acts as a healthy form of distraction from various symptoms, like disturbing thoughts, rather than family therapy where the patient may feel reluctant to talk openly with their family about their problems. Therefore art therapy may be more appropriate treatment for sz.