ABSTRACT
The psychoeducational approach is in use most extensively with families of patients with schizophrenia. Family psychoeducation can be most simply understood as an attempt to deal simultaneously with both of these realities: the disappointing record of antipsychotic drugs used alone and the complex burdens imposed on families by this illness. The psychoeducation approach depends on, or strives to create, a collaborative working relationship among patient, family, psychiatrist, and family clinician. A major blow to pure family-systems beliefs and a major clue to the nature of schizophrenia was the emerging evidence from double-blind experiments that antipsychotics reduced or eliminated symptoms of acute episodes in the vast majority of patients treated. There are two levels at which family dysfunction relates to symptom development: etiology and course of illness. The family clinicians, after engaging a small number of families, conduct an educational workshop for them, preferably as a multifamily meeting, usually lasting most of a day, and usually on a weekend.
