Expressed emotion in families : its significance for mental illness / Julian Leff, Christine Vaughn.

  • Julian Leff
Date:
[1985]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Expressed emotion in families : its significance for mental illness / Julian Leff, Christine Vaughn. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    EXPRESSED EMOTION IN FAMILIES ITS SIGNIFICANCE FOR MENTAL ILLNESS Julian Leff and Christine Vaughn This volume constitutes a definitive statement on the development and use of the concept of expressed emotion in studies of families of schizophrenic pa¬ tients. The British research on expressed emotion and schizophrenia described here has stimulated an im¬ pressive array of new studies and models of inter¬ vention for patients with this disorder. This accumulated work constitutes a major influence on the field of psychiatry today. If for no other reason, this fact should make the book required reading for all professionals treating severe mental illness. —Carol M. Anderson Essential reading for family researchers and thera¬ pists concerned with the course and outcome of schiz¬ ophrenia. —Lyman C. Wynne The discovery that discharged schizophrenic patients who returned home to parents or spouses often fared worse than those living alone led researchers to look for conditions within the family that might influence the patient's condition. At the vanguard of this en¬ deavor was George Brown. In the opening chapter of this volume, he eloquently describes the combination of diligent research, intuition, doubt, and confidence that led to his discovery of the debilitating effect of high levels of expressed emotion. In subsequent chap¬ ters, Leff and Vaughn address some of the confusions and misconceptions which have arisen regarding meas¬ ures of expressed emotion and the techniques for obtaining data, and present important new findings which expand the application of EE measures to other forms of psychiatric illness. Numerous examples are provided in Section I of relatives' emotional reactions, both positive and negative, and the ratings they were assigned. In the second section, the authors provide a thor¬ oughgoing review of earlier studies of the association between EE and relapse, and present findings from their own investigations, conducted both in England and the U.S. Their studies provide important new in¬ sights into the distinguishing characteristics of high EE and low EE relatives. Four key factors identified were: relatives' respect for the patient's needs; their attitudes toward the legitimacy of the illness; expecta¬ tions for the patient's ability to function; and their emotional reactions to the illness. By highlighting familial attitudes that appeared to have a positive effect on the course of the illness, these data provided the basis for studies of clinical interventions with families of psychiatric patients.Jhe findings of two such studies—Leffs London study, and (Continued on back flap)
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