Patients whose children became schizophrenic

Several critics of the theory of the importance of the family environment in the etiology of schizophrenic disorders claim and have sought to prove that the disturbance of family transactions and communications demonstrated by Lidz et al. ( Lidz , T., Cornelison , A., Fleck, S., et al. The intrafamilial environment of the schizophrenic patient: VI. The transmission of irrationality . AMA Arch. Neurol . Psychiatry, 79: 305-316, 1958), Wynne and Singer ( Wynne , L. C., and Singer, M. T. Thought disorder and family relations of schizophrenics: II. A classification of forms of thinking. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry, 9: 199-206, 1963; Singer, M. T., and Wynne , L. C. Thought disorder and family relations of schizophrenics: IV. Results and implications. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry, 12: 201-212, 1965), and others derive from the presence of and concerns about the schizophrenic offspring. The author knows that three of his former nonpsychotic patients each had a child who later became schizophrenic. Two of the three were seen during his residency before his formulation of any hypothesis concerning the intrafamilial environment of schizophrenic patients. The cases reinforce the retrospective findings ( Lidz , T., Fleck, S., and Cornelison , A. Schizophrenia and the Family. International Universities Press, New York, 1965) that the marriages of the parents and the family environments were seriously disturbed before the onset of a schizophrenic disorder in an offspring.