The relapse rate of schizophrenia can be substantially reduced by working with the families of sufferers on the everyday problems generated by the illness. This book is a detailed practical guide to intervention. The approach to working with families has been used by hundreds of community staff and has proved helpful with a range of clients in addition to those with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. The techniques and strategies included in the guide are clearly described for use by clinical practitioners and are illustrated by case examples. The second edition retains the original sections, including the engaging the family, treading the fine line between working as a therapist and being a guest in the family's home, improving communication, teaching problem-solving and cultural issues. Material has been added on the evidence base for family work for schizophrenia and on the emotional responses of siblings. The guide has been further enriched with the authors' experience of working with families over the ten years since the first edition was published.

Of all mental health disorders, schizophrenia remains the most pervasive, bewildering, and resistant to treatment. In addition to its profound effect on the patient, the illness can be equally devastating to the family, a problem that is compounded by the family's frequent role as provider of primary care. Psychoeducation systematically takes into account the family's role in providing care, and the importance of supporting this system, which in turn supports the patient. It is a method of care that remains focused on the family while making use of biological, psychological, and vocational interventions. SCHIZOPHRENIA IN THE FAMILY represents the first treatment manual based on the psychoeducational model. In conjunction with maintenance chemotherapy, psychoeducation reduces the emotional intensity of the patient's environment and creates a sense of continuous care. Using illustrative case examples, this "how-to-do-it' manual demonstrates methods to: * Increase treatment compliance * Sustain patients in the community * Gradually integrate patients into familial, social, and vocational roles. Specifically, they explain how to develop a productive treatment alliance with the patient and the family, and how to share with them concrete knowledge about the illness as well as management techniques for handling its difficulties. They provide recommendations for managing the critical, early outpatient phase of treatment and suggest methods for promoting the ability to work and socialize outside the home. Additionally, they describe how to conduct the final stages of treatment, when patients may be moving into maintenance sessions, other treatment methods, or toward termination. The book concludes with a helpful chapter on training issues and the application of the psychoeducational model to other mental health systems.

Will the person you love ever get better? Chances are you've grappled with the question. With care and support from their families, people with schizophrenia can and do make vast improvements. Noted therapists Kim Mueser and Susan Gingerich deepen your understanding of the illness and cover a wide range of effective treatments. Based on decades of research and experience, they offer pragmatic suggestions for dealing with depression, psychosis, and other symptoms. They show you how to prioritize needs, resolve everyday problems, and encourage your loved one to set life goals. Plus, individual sections highlight special issues for parents, children, siblings, and partners. Whether you’re facing schizophrenia for the first time or you’ve dealt with its impact for years, you’ll discover innovative ways to handle challenges that arise over the course of treatment, from reducing the chances of relapse to making friends and finding work. Recovery isn't an endpoint--it's a lifelong journey. With love, hope, and realistic optimism, striving for it can lead to a richer, more rewarding life for your entire family. Winner, NAMI/Ken Book Award

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • ONE OF GQ's TOP 50 BOOKS OF LITERARY JOURNALISM IN THE 21st CENTURY • The heartrending story of a midcentury American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science's great hope in the quest to understand the disease. "Reads like a medical detective journey and sheds light on a topic so many of us face: mental illness." —Oprah Winfrey Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins--aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony--and they worked hard to play their parts. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, six of the ten Galvin boys, one after another, were diagnosed as schizophrenic. How could all this happen to one family? What took place inside the house on Hidden Valley Road was so extraordinary that the Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institute of Mental Health. Their story offers a shadow history of the science of schizophrenia, from the era of institutionalization, lobotomy, and the schizophrenogenic mother to the search for genetic markers for the disease, always amid profound disagreements about the nature of the illness itself. And unbeknownst to the Galvins, samples of their DNA informed decades of genetic research that continues today, offering paths to treatment, prediction, and even eradication of the disease for future generations. With clarity and compassion, bestselling and award-winning author Robert Kolker uncovers one family's unforgettable legacy of suffering, love, and hope.

The disease is not fatal but few diagnoses have the capacity to instill as much fear in the hearts of patients and families. Here is a profoundly reassuring book that shows there can be life after a diagnosis of schizophrenia. The book includes thirty-five first-person accounts, along with chapters by professionals on a wide range of issues from hospitalization to rehabilitation. Jargon-free and technically accurate, the chapters are short and offer up-to-date information on medication, coping skills, social services, clinical research, and much more. Patients and their families can read the book from cover to cover or skip around and select topics as the need arises.

A critical study of the myths and realities of schizophrenia discusses the symptoms of the disease and offers a practical guide for families and friends of schizophrenics on ways to cope with the problem.