Characteristics of Schizogenic Families During a Joint Story‐Telling Task

Abstract

For a joint family story‐telling task, families with a schizophrenic offspring were compared to normal families on the completeness and clarity of the final composite stories and on their interactional behavior. The composite stories from schizogenic families were more “vague and confused”, fragmented, and less complete as to the five components required to satisfy the task instructions. Schizogenic families displayed more conflict, failure, and confusion during the interactional task than control families, and, fathers and mothers of schizophrenic offspring displayed more “anxiety and tension”, “depressive mood”, “evasiveness” and “lack of interest” than fathers and mothers of normal families. Mothers of schizophrenic offspring were also described as more “hostile” than control mothers. Comparing schizogenic families from which the patient was absent during the task with schizogenic families with the patient present, and with control families, indicated that the central findings were not attributable to the immediate presence and participation of the schizophrenic member.

Egocentrism and Inefficiency in the Communication of Families Containing Schizophrenic Members

“…As a measure of efficiency in communication we simply registered the time each family triad used for each of the two communication tasks, and for the complicated route, whether they resolved the induced communication conflict according to the predetermined criteria. On the basis of previous studies (19, 25, 26, 31, 32, 33, 35, 53, 56, 66, 71) we expected the Group S families to show more inefficient communication than the control families. The present experimental method involved two apparently similar, but in reality highly different, communication settings in that one was simple and straightforward and the other induced a communication conflict.…”

An Evaluative Review of Family Interaction Research

“…There is enormous variability in virtually all factors studied, and there is still some casualness in reporting details. (For examples, see Leighton, et al [125] and Friedman and Friedman [87].) This variability can make for serious difficulties when one attempts to compare the findings from different studies.…”

“…Loveland (141) and Rosenthal,et al (195) have used the Rorschach for generating family discussion. The TAT has been used by Winter,et al (273), O'Rourke (170), Stabenau,et al (230), and Friedman and Friedman (87). And the Wechsler-Bellevue intelligence test was modified by Bauman and Roman (21) for use in their Interaction Testing Technique and this technique was also used by S. Singer (224).…”

“…See, for example, Wynne and Singer (282,283) and Loveland (141). The "theme" is a larger unit used more by people who judge interaction from a qualitative, rather than quantitative, perspective, e.g., Friedman and Friedman (87). And, finally, the whole transactiona much larger unitis sometimes used, e.g., by Lerner (130).…”

Power Relationships in Families: A Social‐Exchange Perspective

“…Schulman, Shoemaker, and Moelis (55) had raters identify “attempts to dominate, restrict, and control behavior” among family members of children who had “conduct problems” versus those of children with no identified problems. Friedman and Friedman (23) rated on an even more global index of “relative parental power positions” and compared families with schizophrenic offspring with control families. Neither study identified significant differential power patterns.…”