Schizophrenia: problems of separation in families

BACKGROUND: In the past, family relationships of people with schizophrenia have mainly been investigated from a clinical viewpoint. The perspective of family development has generally been overlooked in this area of research. AIM: This paper reports a study exploring problems of development and detachment in families with an adult child with schizophrenia. METHOD: Using in-depth interviews, 51 parents of people with schizophrenia were questioned about their living situations and relationships with patients. FINDINGS: Spatial separation from the family home was often complicated or even prevented entirely, with patients permanently living in their parents' household or in the same neighbourhood. Many patients remained dependent on their parents' emotional, practical and financial support. Typically, the parent-child relationship was re-intensified, often with a concurrent loss of social contacts outside the family. From a biographical point of view, schizophrenia often caused problems for families by making parenthood permanent and lifelong parental support necessary. Many parents had to revise their expectations of both their ill child's development and their own personal plans. CONCLUSION: From the viewpoint of family psychology, schizophrenia is a serious obstacle to development that affects both patients and their parents. Family-related support should increasingly take into account the issue of the difficult detachment of patients from their parents.