The Concept of Schizophrenia from the Perspective of Family Treatment

Concurrent Grandparent Death and Birth of Schizophrenic Offspring: An Intriguing Finding

“…The theories of Bowen (6) and others (4, 5, 10, 20) are worthy of testing in this regard. If parents of schizophrenics are poorly differentiated from their parents, a death could arouse overwhelming feelings and anxiety about loss of self.…”

Thinking About the Family—Psychiatric Aspects

“…He feels that feelings of tenderness, adoration, and attachment are more characteristic than the negative emotions of hate and rejection. The intense emotional relationship has led Bowen to refer to it as an “emotional oneness” (15), but it is all the same a functional relationship in that it provides a mechanism by which the mother controls her own immaturity by caring for the immaturity of her child (14). Any disturbance of the relationship would thereby serve as a threat to the mother.…”

“…The question is more complex, however, since it has been noted that the decline in the dependence of the mothering figure on the child in cases of adolescent maladjustment is often experienced by the adolescent as rejection (124). By the same token, Bowen (14) has reported that in his small group of research families, none of the mothers was rejecting, but that they were all perceived by the schizophrenic patient as rejecting. The critical variable was the mother's anxiety: when high, they are hovering and infantilizing; when less anxious, they give less attention to the child.…”

“…Bowen (14) remarks that clinical experience suggests that people tend to choose spouses who have achieved an equivalent level of immaturity, but who have opposite defense mechanisms. In the schizophrenic families studied at NIMH this pattern seems to be verified: both marital partners were equally immature and their relationship tended to fall into an overadequate‐inadequate pattern (14, 15). Consequently, there would seem to be some notable support for a hypothesis of complementarity of needs in marital partners not only with regard to type of need, but also in intensity of need as related to immaturity of development.…”

“…Consequently, there would seem to be some notable support for a hypothesis of complementarity of needs in marital partners not only with regard to type of need, but also in intensity of need as related to immaturity of development. Although some attention has been paid to the perceptions of the respective spouses of each other prior to marriage (14), we do not have much information. One might wonder whether the perceptions were governed by projections related to the inner personality needs of the respective spouses.…”