The Psychiatrist as Family Physician

One outcome of psychiatry's increasingly medical orientation has been a reconsideration of the psychiatrist's traditional taboo against treating members of the same family individually. The author argues that by modeling themselves after family physicians, psychiatrists can learn more about the psychological, genetic, and dynamic factors underlying the psychiatric problems of family members and can better diagnose and treat them. The family model of psychiatric treatment also reduces family members' resistance to psychiatric intervention and fortifies the psychiatrist's position as a member of professional organizations providing total health care services. The author presents case histories of two families whose various members he has seen periodically for more than ten years.