Expressed emotion: current status

Expressed emotion: current status 1 Almost three decades of controversy have surrounded the concept of'expressed emotion'. This fascinating saga has been carefully chronicled in the recent book by Leff and Vaughn, Expressed Emotion in Families (1985). The original work derived from the unexpected finding that long-stay patients survived longer in community settings and maintained better social functioning when they were discharged to lodgings, siblings, or distant relatives, than when they returned to parental or spousal households, or to professionally staffed hostels The emotional response of key household members to the patient's behavioural disturbance appeared to be the best predictor of successful transfer to the community.