Sociocultural Factors in Families of Schizophrenics^†

Thinking About the Family—Psychiatric Aspects

“…Rejection is a common theme in the family histories of disturbed children and adolescents (31, 100), and by the same token overprotection seems to recur frequently in the histories of phobic children (5, 35, 97) and drug addicts (94). Although overprotection has been emphasized in the histories of schizophrenics (29, 45), rejecting attitudes are nonetheless prominent (44, 120). In a large schizophrenic population, Wahl (130) was able to find rejection and/or overprotection in only half of the cases.…”

The Patient's Family: Research Methods

“…This statement is not only counter to the findings of most other case history studies, but seems to belie the results which Bender herself obtained in a previous study (10). As Sanua (77) points out, an analysis of this earlier study shows that 42% of the sample of schizophrenic children did come from disturbed homes where they were abused, or lived in foster homes during infancy.…”

“…Recent books and articles (77, 87, 63) have carefully examined much of the literature in the area of parent‐child relationships in various psychiatric disorders and found it wanting. Sanua, focussing on the families of schizophrenics, culled nearly a hundred studies in this area and, after noting the deficiencies of most of these studies in dealing with such variables as ethnic group membership, social class, diagnostic category, age and sex, concluded:…”

Psychodynamic Factors in the Mother-Child Relationship in Adolescent Drug Addiction: A Comparison of Mothers of Schizophrenics and Mothers of Normal Adolescent Sons

“…The mothers batten parasitically on their children, preventing them from ever becoming independent. The symbiotic relationship between mother and child develops in which the two egos remain so fused and intermingled that the boundaries never become clear (Sanua, 1961).…”