Reciprocated self-disqualification among parents of schizophrenics

Is deviant parental communication an interactional phenomenon? If it is, is this interaction stronger or weaker among parents of schizophrenics (S) than among parents of non-schizophrenic psychiatric controls (NS) and normals (N)? These two questions were investigated by using sequential analysis of parental interaction during Spouse Rorschach. Parents' deviant communication was measured by the self-disqualification (SD) category in the Relationship Control Coding System. Results showed that self-disqualification clearly depended on the quality of the previous parental communication: an SD utterance greatly increased the probability of an SD response from the spouse among S (n = 17), NS (n = 15) and N (n = 14). However, this increased probability was significantly higher among S parents. Furthermore, S parents' communication was significantly less dependent on their own previous communication than NS and N parents' communication was. However, the sheer magnitude of parental SD communication was a significant predictor of offspring diagnosis even when the interaction between the spouses was controlled for. Thus, the results indicate that the high rate of deviant communication among S parents is partly due to individual characteristics of the parents and partly due to reciprocation of the other spouse's deviant communication. The results are discussed with reference to possible gene-environment interaction in both schizophrenia and deviant communication.