Current concepts about schizophrenics and family relationships.

This review notes that two new series of studies of the family relationships of schizophrenics are now emerging. One approach, giving special emphasis to the concept of communication deviance, examines family relationships in prospective longitudinal studies of children and adolescents who are at increased risk for later psychopathology, including schizophrenia. A second approach studies expressed emotion of key relatives as a predictor of subsequent course of illness in persons who already have been diagnosed as schizophrenic. A considerable diversity of methods for studying family relationships are now available, some with patient absent and some with the family members observed indirect interaction with one another. Implications for pathogenesis and treatment are discussed, as well as methodological and substantive problems requiring further investigation.