Psychoeducational family therapy for schizophrenia: a review essay.

The recent publication of Schizophrenia and the Family, by Carol M. Anderson, Douglas J. Reiss, and Gerald E. Hogarty (Guilford Press, 1986; 365 pp; $26.95), has provided an excellent opportunity for the field to take a fresh look at what has been called the "psychoeducational" approach to family therapy for schizophrenia. Although Anderson and her colleagues are not the first group to have provided us with a "treatment manual" for this innovative approach to therapy (e.g., see Falloon et al. 1984), their efforts come at a time when the psychoeducational approach is beginning to receive widespread attention. For example, a new multicenter NIMH study is currently under way examining the efficacy of such psychoeducational approaches as components of the posthospital treatment of schizophrenia. Hence this is a particularly propitious moment to review the issues raised by this book and the treatment it describes.