Angus M. Strachan

The Family and Schizophrenia

The last 30 years have witnessed a steady growth of interest in family influences on the individual, in the operations of family systems, and in harnessing the power of the family in creating therapeutic change. Throughout this period, but particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, schizophrenia has been a major focus of family researchers and therapists and has received more attention from eminent scholars of the family than other forms of psychopathology.

Do Relatives Express Expressed Emotion

Recent research has shown that family intervention programs, in combination with neuroleptic medication, can have dramatic effects on the course of schizophrenia in terms of both psychiatric and social functioning (Goldstein, Rodnick, Evans, May, and Steinberg, 1978; this volume, Chaps. 12–14). All these programs have focused on treating and supporting the family as a unit, although it has not always been clear what important aspects of family functioning these programs affect. However, as suggested by Goldstein and Strachan (Chap. 15), the way in which emotional attitudes are communicated and problems are solved may be crucial factors, with expressed emotion (EE) as a key index of such processes.

Parental communication deviance and schizophrenia: a cross-cultural comparison of Mexican- and Anglo-Americans.

Levels of parental communication deviance (CD), as measured on the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), were compared among families of schizophrenic patients in two culturally distinct groups. Spanish-speaking Mexican-American parents of schizophrenics completed the TAT in their native language, and CD was coded from their stories by a Spanish-speaking rater. Mexican-American parents had levels of CD that were nearly identical to those of a carefully matched sample of English-speaking Anglo-American parents. Factor scores that measure distinct subtypes of CD also did not differ across groups. The data suggest that levels of CD, despite discriminating between parents of schizophrenics and nonschizophrenics, do not vary across different languages and cultures.

Assessing Children's Perceptions of Family Relationships: An Interactive Instrument for Use in Custody Disputes

There is a pressing need for a structured method for assessing childrens feelings about the behavior of parents and other family members that provides reliable and valid—rather than anecdotal—information to the court. This paper reviews available instruments and presents preliminary data on a new method for measuring childrens perceptions of emotional security, positive parenting, negative parenting, and co-parenting. This instrument, the Structured Child Assessment of Relationships in Families (the “SCARF”), is structured, interactive, and engaging to children age 4 to 14. Forty children undergoing custody evaluations were assessed. Evaluators, blind to the childrens responses, rated the quality of parenting. A sample of 131 children was used to assess reliability. The SCARF was shown to be highly reliable and to correlate strongly with evaluator ratings of emotional security, positive parenting, and negative parenting.