Family Response to Improvement by a Relative With Schizophrenia

The sudden improvement in long-term schizophrenic patients after treatment with clozapine is frequently disconcerting to their families. In many cases the patients appear to have increased hostility toward their families because of the alleviation of negative symptoms such as apathy and blunted affect. The authors believe that psychoeducational intervention can help families adjust to the change in their family members and describe such intervention with three families. They emphasize the importance of recognizing that a patient's improvement can be a stressor in the family relationship and the need for devising appropriate interventions.