Neurological trauma and family functioning: toward a social neuropsychology

Griffin and Greene ("Social Interaction and Symptom Sequences," this issue) present evidence linking patterns of family interaction with the expression of disease symptoms, in this case orofacial bradykinesia in a patient with Parkinson's disease. They argue that symptom expression may be influenced by family interaction for many diseases or chronic conditions and advocate the use of behavioral observation and microanalytic coding of behavior sequences as a means of studying this linkage. They note that the success of this approach will depend on the temporal characteristics of symptom fluctuation and suggest that observational strategies will be primarily useful for studying symptoms that fluctuate across seconds or minutes rather than across days. What kinds of conditions might this include? Griffin and Greene mention three categories: (1) mental and emotional disorders; (2) chronic pain; (3) neurological conditions.