Stages in family response to mental illness: An ideal type.

Abstract

Recent changes in social policy toward the mentally ill highlight the role of the family, particularly as deinstitutionalization shifts a greater part of the burden to family members. Research by sociologists in the 1950's indicated that family members go through predictable stages in response, but there has been little recent attention to this issue and few ideal types have been proposed. Based on intensive interviews with 30 families of mentally ill persons, the present study led to tentative identification of nine stages of response: (1) initial awareness of a problem; (2) denial of mental illness; (3) labelling; (4) faith in mental health professionals; (5) recurrent crises; (6) recognition of chronicity; (7) loss of faith in professionals; (8) belief in the family 's expertise; and (9) worrying about the future. Implications of this ideal type are discussed in terms of the role of the family and relationships with mental health professionals.

Age and family burden among parents of offspring with severe mental illness.

“…In the first of these, burden is initially high, declines through the middle years, and rises again during the later years. If so, a plateau may occur during the middle-aged years of parenting, as parents become resigned to a less-thanperfect but manageable life for the ill off-spring (Tessler, Killian, & Gubman, 1987). In this argument, parental anxieties about the illness and frustration with the mental health system are highest in the early years of illness (Cook & Pickett, 1988).…”

Burden and psychological effects : caregiver experiences in a psychiatric outpatient unit in Lagos, Nigeria

“…1 Psychiatric illness has a major impact on both patients and their relatives. 2,3 Care giving on its own comes with several challenges and occasional distress, as the role of caring affects every aspect of the caregivers' life 4 , with this consequence formally known as "caregiver burden". Caregiver burden is complex and has been found to include several areas such as activities in daily life , worry and social strain.…”

Working Collaboratively with Families

“…Understanding of the family dilemma has been significantly enhanced by a plethora of studies about the way that mental illness affects the whole family (Cooke, Lefley, Pickett, & Cohler, 1994;Hatfield, 1978Hatfield, , 1979Hoenig & Hamilton, 1955;Tessler, Killian, & Gubman, 1987).…”