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The Structure of the Families of Schizophrenics
Author(s) -
Davis John Mark
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
australian journal of family therapy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1467-8438
pISSN - 0156-8779
DOI - 10.1002/j.1467-8438.1980.tb00138.x
Subject(s) - nothing , spouse , neuroticism , psychology , psychiatry , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , psychotherapist , family member , family therapy , medicine , social psychology , sociology , family medicine , personality , philosophy , epistemology , anthropology
In the families of schizophrenic patients everything is subordinated to the neurotic or psychotic needs of one of the parents, and the whole family then works together to stop that parent from becoming psychotic. The other parent must become completely subjugated or withdrawn and leave the family under the domination of his spouse. This becomes a rigid system in which the patient's role is to “feel nothing, do nothing, and be nothing”, and any minor change in him becomes a major threat to the integrity of the whole family. It is when he can no longer maintain this role that the person becomes clinically schizophrenic. Some of the difficulties in treating schizophrenic patients in individual or family therapy are discussed.