Therapeutic intervention with schizophrenic patients and their families: a description of a clinical research project

These ideas have been incorporated into research which has been based on the view that schizophrenia has a more complex aetiology. It is viewed as an illness, that is having a biological basis, but that acute stress, such as life events or chronic stress, such as prolonged family difficulties, are the necessary conditions for the vulnerable individual to become symptomatic. Several studies have been done using this general approach, that schizophrenia is an illness, which can be brought on, or exacerbated by, stress, one source of which is the family (Anderson, 1981; Lieberman, 1981; All these studies were outcome studies in which a variety of therapeutic approaches were used including medication, education and family therapy, with the aim of improving the course of the patient's condition. This paper will describe the rationale, design and clinical work in the study carried out by Leff and his co-workers (1982). The main aim of the trial was to reduce the relapse rates in a group of high risk schizophrenic patients. It was assumed that by interveningwith these patients and their families, the course of the schizophrenic condition would be favourably altered, as compared to those schizophrenics who did not receive the intervention. The results of this trial will not be dealt with in great detail in this paper, except to mention that the aims were achieved and that the relapse rates for the group of families which received the intervention were significantly reduced as compared to the group which did not receive it (see Leff et al., 1982