What is this study about?
The study aims to identify key processes in families that are central to emotional and interpersonal well being. This will provide vital clues to understanding the family in relation to adolescent disorders such as depression and self-harm.
What are we doing?
We have devised a family interview and a scoring method that directs the clinician to the family’s functioning in different modes, or domains of family life. It is particularly designed to spot what is going on where a young person’s symptoms become more severe in spite of, and at times as a result of, family members’ best efforts.
In parallel we have developed a way of describing the general principles of domain functioning to families, so that they can become observers of their own day-to-day interactions. This provides them with a tool to increase understanding, and a platform from which the family can generate alternative ways of responding to difficult emotions and behaviours.
We are also training clinicians to analyse domain processes in their daily clinical encounters with young people and their families, and to build the results of these analyses into treatment planning.
What will come out of this study?
There is a lack of standardised ways of assessing family life that lead directly to treatment of serious mental health problems. This is therefore a first in the field.
The family interview will provide a method for the scientific study of the interplay between family processes and mental health problems. In turn it will inform treatment, and provide a way of assessing the impact of family-based therapies. The domains framework will benefit young people with mental health problems by providing families with additional ways of meeting their needs, and clinicians with a wider repertoire of treatment options.
