Family education Health Article

Definition

Family education is the ongoing process of educating family members about a serious mental illness in order to improve their coping skills and their ability to help a relative affected by the illness.

Purpose

When someone is diagnosed with a chronic illness, such as diabetes or heart disease, efforts are typically made by his/her doctor not only to educate the individual directly affected by the illness, but to educate and involve his/her family in treatment and care. Historically, this has not been the case with severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, major depression, bipolar disorder, or schizoaffective disorder.

More often than not, mental health professionals did not educate families about what to expect or how to care for their loved one. In fact, for much of the twentieth century it was believed that mental illness was caused by overly strict or overly permissive parenting styles, and families were unfairly blamed for causing these disorders. Mothers were labeled "schizophrenogenic" and even well-meaning clinicians tried to keep them and other family members at a distance. Bateson's "double-bind" theory suggested that contradictory messages and communications by parents were the root cause of the problem. Because of these ideas and the stigma associated with mental illness, families felt isolated and alone, with few resources to assist them. After diagnosis, the only recourse for most families was to go to public libraries to read and learn as much as they could on their own.

Over the last 20 years, advances in genetics, neuroscience, and imaging techniques have provided new evidence that severe mental illnesses are neurobiological in origin. With this scientific knowledge has come greater awareness and understanding that these are "no-fault" brain illnesses, and that neither families nor patients should be blamed. Rather, they both should receive the necessary information and support to help them better cope with these complex disorders.