Family Interventions: Basic Principles and Techniques.

Abstract

Mental health professionals in India have always involved families in therapy. However, formal involvement of families occurred about one to two decades after this therapeutic modality was started in the West by Ackerman.[1] In India, families form an important part of the social fabric and support system, and as a result, they are integral in being part of the treatment and therapeutic process involving an individual with mental illness. Mental illnesses afflict individuals and their families too. When an individual is affected, the stigma of being mentally ill is not restricted to the individual alone, but to family members/caregivers also. This type of stigma is known as “Courtesy Stigma” (Goffman). Families are generally unaware and lack information about mental illnesses and how to deal with them and in turn, may end up maintaining or perpetuating the illness too. Vidyasagar is credited to be the father of Family Therapy in India though he wrote sparingly of his work involving families at the Amritsar Mental Hospital.[2] This chapter provides salient features of broad principles for providing family interventions for the treating psychiatrist.