Family therapy of schizophrenia

Family therapy of schizophrenia has long been conceived and practised under etiological premises. Familial disturbances as pathological regression/fixation (psychoanalytical) and individuation-impairing family dynamics (systemic) were addressed directly in the hope of "curing" the disorder. The efforts to prove the viability of the concepts and/or the efficacy of the therapeutic approach were largely unsuccessful. Newer strategies of family therapy of schizophrenia are both more precise in their theoretical assumptions and more performing in the pursuit of their therapeutic goals. We analyse the basis of modern family therapy in the "Expressed-Emotions (EE)"--research and propose a newer, more adequate understanding of the EE phenomenon. From our own studies and from a general review of relevant studies we derive an understanding of the rationale of family work and family therapy of schizophrenia. We discuss the results of a meta-analysis on the active ingredients and the conditions of efficacy of family interventions.