Group Treatment of Families with Schizophrenic Sons (original) (raw)

Social Casework

Abstract

IN 1962, the Veterans Administration Mental Hygiene Clinic in San Francisco initiated a program of group treatment as an experimental effort to provide service to families of schizophrenic patients being treated at the clinic. As the group leaders became skilled in using this form of treatment, the Family Group program became a regular part of the clinic program. The group is composed of the patients who attend the Day Treatment Center and their parents. Over the four-year period, sixteen families have participated in the group. The median length of group membership for each family is approximately eight months. This article describes the theoretical base of this treatment approach and some of the techniques used. Practitioners from several disciplines have contributed to the formulations that constitute the theoretfcal base for working with the family group. Social group workers and group therapists have supplied knowledge of group dynamics and of various necessary techniques. In addition, numerous studies of the "schizophrenic family" and various family therapy methods have contributed much of the theoretical framework. In the past decade, there has been an increasing number of studies of family dynamics and an increasing emphasis on the development of family therapy as a technique for working with families in which there is a schizophrenic member. This literature is too profuse to be covered, but since some of these theories are important in understanding the family group, they will be discussed.

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