Psychological therapies- Family therapy

Question 1

What is family therapy?

Answer 1

A range of interventions carried out with all or some members of a family of someone with a mental disorder with the aim of improving their communication and reducing the stress of living as a family

Question 2

What is the main aim of family therapy?

Answer 2

Provide support for carers to make family life less stressful and reduce relapse rates

Question 3

Provide support for carers to make family life less stressful and reduce relapse rates

Answer 3

1. Psychoeducation- helping carers understand and be better able to deal with illness
2. Alliance with family members
3. Improving ability of family to anticipate and solve problems
4. Reduction of expressions of anger and guilt by family members
5. Helping family members achieve a balance between caring for individual and maintaining own lives.

Question 4

What are the three strengths of family therapy?

Answer 4

Evidence for effectiveness:
Pharoah et al. (2010)- Carried out a meta-analysis on studies investigating the effectiveness of family therapy  is evidence to show that family therapy significantly reduces hospital readmission over the course of a year and improves quality of life for patients and their families compared to standard care (antipsychotic medication).
COUNTER-ARGUMENT: Methodological limitation= raters were not ‘blinded’ to the condition to which participants had been allocated. In other words, raters were aware of the type of treatment received (family therapy or standard care) by the participants they were rating, which may have influenced their conclusions.

Economic benefits:
The NICE review of family therapy studies revealed that family therapy is associated with significant cost savings when offered to people with schizophrenia. The extra cost of family therapy is offset by a reduction in costs of hospitalisation because of the lower relapse rates associated with family therapy.

Impact on family members:
Family therapy not only improves outcomes for the patient but also has a positive impact on family members.
Lobban et al. (2013)- carried out meta-analysis on family therapy studies which has included an intervention to support relatives.
60% of these studies reported a significant positive impact of the intervention on at least one outcome category for relatives, e.g. coping and problem-solving skills etc.

Question 5

What is the limitation of family therapy?

Answer 5

Unlikely to work on its own:
Family therapy would probably not be successful on its own, but needs to be used in conjunction with drug therapy. Therefore, it is hard to determine the extent to which improvements are due to the family therapy as opposed to the drug therapy.