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Fam Proc 1:153-155, 1962

FAMILY AFFAIRS
The aim of this column is to report on ongoing research work in the area of the family and small group process. It is hoped that brief information given here about research design and theoretical views will stimulate correspondence between interested parties. We are asking the cooperation of our readers in reporting on their projects and in writing us about their opinion of other projects or of work they feel needs doing. Doctor Henry Grunebaum from the Massachusetts Mental Health Center writes us that his group is interested in conjoint family treatment of patients with psychoses and a followup study of these treated cases is planned. In addition, Dr. Grunebaum reports, Boston Psychopathic Hospital has been admitting the children of psychotically disturbed women so that an unusual opportunity is afforded to study mother-child relationships. *** Doctor Nathan Ackerman reports that The Family Institute of New York City is planning a Research Conference on "The Science of the Family" to be held at Arden House in 1962. The Family Institute is busily engaged in professional training and has been working with seven service organizations in Westchester County including psychiatrists and pediatricians in the same communities. The first of a series of composite films on conjoint family psychotherapy is now completed and is being distributed on a rental basis to accredited professional training centers. This training is made available through the auspices of The Family Institute and the Jewish Family Service. *** Doctor Theodore Lidz reports that he and his associates at Yale are continuing to analyze their data on 17 families with schizophrenic patients. Three articles are being submitted for publication shortly: one, a study of the siblings of schizophrenic patients; two, the comparison of the parent-child relationships of male and female schizophrenic patients; and three, a sociologically oriented paper on the alienation of the families of the schizophrenic patients prepared with the assistance of Doctor Ezra Vogel. They report that they are currently attempting to replicate McConaghey's consistent finding of a thought disorder in one parent of schizophrenic patients on the Lovabond version of the Rappaport Sorting Test. David Rosenthal at NIMH is working on a similar project and exchanging views with the Yale Group. *** Doctor Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy from the Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute tells us that their family therapy project in schizophrenia has been running four years. The clinical material is derived from a 20 bed ward of selected young female schizophrenic patients. The patients are involved in individual psychotherapy, in therapeutic community, and daily group meetings. In addition, there are family meetings, and to date ten families have been seen almost three years. *** Doctor Roger L. Shapiro's project, Difficulties in Growth and Adaptation in Adolescent Personality Development, continues at Bethesda. Adolescents who become too emotionally disturbed to perform adequately in the college setting are studied interacting with their families in weekly family sessions. The attempt is to clarify the relation of parental delineation to adolescent self delineation and identity consolidation or diffusion. Project members are Blanche Usdansky, Ph.D.; Carl Wolff, M.D.; Carmen Cabrera, M.A.; John Hart, M.D.; James Maas, M.D., and Bruce Sklarew, M.D. *** Doctor Lyman C. Wynne writes from NIMH that his project, Family Relations in Schizophrenia, is a long-term program to examine the family setting of offspring with mental disorder. Families of young schizophrenics are compared with matched families of non-schizophrenic but psychiatrically disturbed patients, and the patients are compared with siblings within each family. The data includes observations and tape recordings of conjoint family psychotherapy and art therapy, taped individual psychotherapy and diagnostic interviews, naturalistic home visits, and an extensive battery of individual and conjoint psychological tests. The technique, indications, and contra-indications for conjoint family therapy are also being studied. Other members of the project are Juliana Day, M.D.; Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph.D.; Carol Hoover, Psychiatric Social Worker, and several part-time psychiatrists. *** Gregory Bateson is disbanding his research group after nine years of research on the nature of communication. His Family Therapy grant terminates in August of this year and he plans to release his associates. He will then prepare a book on the project work and study the metacommunicative behavior of the octopus. *** Doctor John Bowlby writes from England about the work at the Tavistock Clinic and Institute. Dr. R. D. Laing is Principal Investigator on a study of the families of schizophrenic patients to examine the interrelation between

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schizophrenic symptomatology and the family. Different family members are seen singly, in dyads, and triads with particular attention given to siblings and in-laws or grandparents. The theoretical concepts are described in "The Self and Others," by Dr. Laing (Tavistock Publications, 1961). Others on the project are H. Phillipson, Clinical Psychologist; Marion Bosanquet, P.S.W.; Dr. A. Esterson, and Dr. Peter Lomas. *** Doctor Murray Bowen is half time at Georgetown University School of Medicine. He is completing the report on his NIMH study and aims at a July 1962 deadline. *** The Mental Research Institute has continued to grow and has four new associates who are doing family research: Dr. Arlene Daniels, a sociologist; Dr. John Weblin, a New Zealand Psychiatrist who came to us from Cambridge; Dr. Paul Watzlawick, a psychologist formerly with the Rosen project at Temple University, and Dr. Jerome Rose, a former juvenile court psychiatrist in New York City (who of all things is working with delinquent families). Family Affairs depends upon your keeping us informed, so don't be modest. Please address correspondence to Don D. Jackson, M.D., Palo Alto Medical Clinic, Palo Alto, California. DDJ