Evaluating Family Mental Health: History, Epidemiology, and Treatment Issues (Critical Issues in Psychiatry)

At the time of this writing, there is much uncertainty about the form of this country's future healthcare system and the role of psychiatry and other mental health disciplines in that system. Current experience with various managed healthcare programs is not encouraging. Most often patients with severe psychiatrie disturbances receive, at best, so me form of crisis intervention or brief treatment. Marital and family approaches to treatment receive even less support. This discouraging socioeconomic context makes the work of John Schwab and his colleagues even more important than it would be in more favorable times. Their message is clear: The family is crucial to an understanding of psychiatrie disorders and must often be the major focus in the treatment of these disorders. This book is unique in its direct reflection of the senior author's long-term professional interests-the family, epidemiology, and history. A careful reading provides family therapists and researchers with won­ derful opportunities to examine the ways in which history, socio­ economie and politieal contexts, and epidemiology can be used to in­ crease understanding of the family. This his tory of the family is unusually thorough; in particular, I found fascinating the information about early Egyptian families (3000 B.C.) and their accordance of high status of women. The objectives of the current study are twofold: to provide historical and scientific perspectives on the well-being families; to clarify the mutual interactions and influences of the community, the family, and the individual. Within these contexts, the authors present the results of original research which indicates an alarming increase in families with two or more members with multiple disorders. The book will provide a much needed context for clinicians to assess their own everyday work with families Front Matter....Pages i-xix The Crisis....Pages 1-29 History of the Family....Pages 31-83 A Century of Concern....Pages 85-156 Family Research....Pages 157-226 Our Family Studies....Pages 227-283 The Younger and Adult Children....Pages 285-313 The Historical-Clinic Chart Study....Pages 315-329 Clinical Implications....Pages 331-352 Summary and Conclusions....Pages 353-391 Back Matter....Pages 393-432