1) Michelle Davitt (Family Therapist)
Sligo/Leitrim Mental Health Services
Sligo Family Therapy Team’s
Pilot Programme for working with
families and psychosis
"Who cares?“
conference 5th June 2013
Why work with families?
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There is robust evidence to support that family
interventions for psychosis are effective at
reducing relapse and improving outcomes for
people with psychosis (Bustillo et al., 2001;
Pfammer et al, 2006;Pharoah et al, 2006).
The NICE guidelines recommend that family
interventions should be offered 100% of families
with psychosis who have experienced a recent
relapse , are at risk of relapsing or living with or
in close contact with their family.
What are the benefits ?
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Working with families as early as possible can help for
feelings of loss/sadness to be responded to directly, for
information about symptoms /services to be shared with
them and to include families as key partners in the
individuals recovery.
Developing an alliance with the family can hold the key
to engagement of the client and prepares the ground for
later collaboration , e.g. in times of crisis, (Burbach,
Stanbridge, 2006). Many families themselves describe
having difficulty coping with the emergence of psychosis
and the burden this creates (Fadden, 2006).
The Sligo Team’s Clinical
Approach
Systemic
Cognitive
behavioural
Informative
Family needs-led
Collaborative
Stance
Competency
Based
Our framework for working with
families
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Engage with family- hear their story, their
understanding of development of psychotic
symptoms
Information sharing-symptoms/ services/ wider
mental health issues
Communication Training/Family Interaction
Problem Solving
Relapse Prevention
RESEARCH PROJECT
Participants were asked for feedback on the following
areas:
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Initial preconceptions about attending family therapy
Overall satisfaction with family therapy service
Likes and dislikes about the service
Therapeutic alliance
Common problems faced by families
Problems and symptoms change
Coping with problems and symptoms
Views on participating in the research
Feedback from families on their
experience of family therapy
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“At the start I was an emotional wreck.
But I became more able to cope with how
my son was when unwell. The stress
reduced dramatically because we were
dealing with the illness as a family, it was
out in the open”.
“We started communicating more about
the problems. I learned how to interact
with my daughter and I understood more
about the illness. It took my fear away
from talking to friends.”