Family and Social Management of Schizophrenia*

Stress and coping patterns of parents of the mentally ill in Israel

“…Instead, they report coping more by using a number of individual adjustment strategies (feeling that life must go on, counting on oneself, acceptance and crying). These findings are similar to other studies (Beels, 1975;Potasznik and Nelson, 1984) and may indicate one of a number of possibilities. It may be that such sources are not approached due to stigma felt by parents, or, alternatively, that parents have tried initially to draw on such sources and have subsequently withdrawn due to a limited ability to assist.…”

Schizophrenia and the Family: II. Adverse Effects of Family Therapy

“…Yet this seems an obvious, necessary precaution in these times, when the contributions of constitution (13) and heredity (11, 12, 26) have been so well demonstrated. Beels (4) described the dilemma from a position closer to that of the relatives' own experience:…”

“…When either therapist or family harbor the belief that schizophrenia is caused by personal experience with family members, therapeutic misalliance is bound to follow. My thesis in this paper is that sociogenic modeling constitutes a barrier to trustful and respectful collaboration between relative and therapist and may foster splitting of family and therapist by the patient (4). When a therapist invokes the family as a causal agent, a situation is created in which patient and family may actually make more positive long‐term adjustments to schizophrenic vulnerabilities by avoiding professional help (2, 7).…”

Therapeutic intervention with schizophrenic patients and their families: a description of a clinical research project

“…The education must therefore link the relatives' behaviour to that of the patient in a way that reduces the relative's guilt, thereby enabling the relative to mobilize his resources but also in a way that offers some hope for positive change. As Beels (1975) says 'a distinction should be made between illness, which carries the implications of a social role of a sick person incapacitated until properly treated, and disease, which carries implications of retraining, rehabilitation and the avoidance of situations which lead to stress'. The education programme described here emphasizes the relative's rble in keeping the patient well.…”