[Family therapy in forensic psychiatry]

Patients in forensic psychiatry and their relatives are both doubly stigmatized by the labels psychiatric disturbance and delinquency. In an expert-guided group for relatives of forensic patients at Karl-Bonhoeffer-Psychiatric Hospital Berlin choice of topic and frequency of attendance indicated enormous guilty feelings. Defense against these guilty feelings could only be kept up by great effort. Support of relatives in forensic psychiatry seems advisable also for the rehabilitation of the patients themselves and prevention of relapse.