Behavioral Family Treatment for Patients with Bipolar Affective Disorder

Techniques of behavioral family management (BFM), which have been found to be highly effective in delaying relapse for schizophrenic patients when used as adjuncts to medication maintenance, are also applicable in the outpatient treatment of recently hospitalized bipolar, manic patients. The authors describe their adaptation of the educational, communication skills training, and problem-solving skills training modules of BFM to families containing a bipolar member. The observations that families of bipolar patients are often high functioning, and that these families seem to enjoy interchanges that are highly affective and spontaneous, led to certain modifications in the original BFM approach. The authors found it necessary to be (a) more flexible and less didactic, (b) more oriented toward dealing with affect and resistance to change, and (c) more focused on the patient's and family members' feelings about labeling, stigmatization, and medication usage. Research issues relevant to testing the efficacy of this approach are also discussed.