Responses of Families to the Treatment Setting

Authors

  • Linda E. Rose

Abstract

Families of psychiatric patients have many problems and concerns as a result of their relatives' mental illness and subsequent hospitalization. Living with a mentally ill relative for months or even years prior to treatment may result in disruption of social and personal routines; it may create physical and emotional stress; and it may cause financial and occupational difficulties (Robin, Copas & Freeman-Browne, 1979). Their initial encounters with the psychiatric hospital occur at a time of crisis, when they may be feeling guilty and ashamed for having contributed to the illness, and they may be apprehensive about the future (Leavitt, 1975). They may also feel inadequate and helpless because they lack information about the illness and its treatment (Lewis & Zeichner, 1960). The hospitalization presents families with the task of acknowledging the relative as "mentally ill", a task which is a major component of the crisis (Clausen & Yarrow, 1955; Mechanic, 1967). Families therefore try to make sense of events and people encountered during the hospital experience in order to help them with this task (Perelberg, 1983). Families often arrive at a psychiatric hospital following a circuitous and frustrating route of seeking help from various agencies and professionals. The families' views of the hospital as a last resort, as well as their attitudes about mental illness, contribute to their feelings of guilt with the result that the family is "thrown out of balance" by the hospitalization (Fleck, 1965; Zwerling & Mendelsohn, 1965). Anderson (1977) noted that families felt isolated from the hospital, they experienced few opportunities to express their feelings or request support, and often they appeared resistant to therapy because of their fears and anxieties about the illness. Leavitt (1975) found that families maintained their feelings of confusion and fear throughout the hospitalization, and concluded that hospital staff had not been effective in supporting the family.

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Published

1985-04-13

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Section

Articles