Premium
Family Therapy in Trouble: Psychoeducation as Solution and as Problem
Author(s) -
HUNTER DAVID E. K.,
HOFFNUNG ROBERT J.,
FERHOLT JULIAN B.
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
family process
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.011
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1545-5300
pISSN - 0014-7370
DOI - 10.1111/j.1545-5300.1988.00327.x
Subject(s) - psychoeducation , reductionism , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , family therapy , psychotherapist , psychology , mental illness , psychiatry , mental health , epistemology , intervention (counseling) , philosophy
The authors cite clinical literature attesting to the importance of recognizing the family, rather than the individual, as the proper locus of conceptualizing, diagnosing, and treating mental illnesses. Specifically with regard to severe psychiatric illnesses, in particular schizophrenia, family dysfunction contributes to the emergence of the illness, significantly affects its course, and strongly influences the achievement and maintenance of treatment gains. Currently, a movement is afoot to limit sharply the amount and kind of treatment offered to schizophrenic patients and their families. Rooted in a “medical model” or “biogenic” view of the etiology of schizophrenia, this school of thought prescribes psychoeducation as the family treatment of choice. The present article looks at some misconceptions regarding treatment that prompted a widespread turning away from psychoanalytically oriented family psychotherapy for schizophrenic patients and their families, examines the reductionism (biological and behavioral) inhering in the exclusive use of psychoeducation, and looks at the clinical dangers of such reductionism. Finally, it proposes that family psycho‐therapists should not abandon a concern with the inner lives of severely ill patients and their families in the face of spuriously generalized claims made by reductionist researchers.