Relationships between personality development, interpersonal perception and communication in parents of schizophrenics, psychiatric controls and normal subjects.

Employing a family interaction paradigm, the psychodynamic development of personality (Consensus Spouse-Rorschach, CSR), mutuality in interpersonal perception (Interpersonal Perception Method), and feedback mechanisms in communication (the Confirmation-Disconfirmation Coding System) were investigated. The subjects were 66 parents (33 couples) whose offspring were as follows: 12 schizophrenics (RDC, DSM-III, DSM-III-R), 12 with other mental disorders, and 9 subjects with no mental disorder. Communication was observed in 2 situations, using CSR and the Colour Conflict Method. Feedback mechanisms in parent communication, previously found to be associated with offspring mental disorder, were associated both with lack of mutuality in interpersonal perception and low personality development. Lack of mutuality was associated with low parent personality development. The results emphasize the usefulness of monitoring both parent personality development (family structure), mutuality in interpersonal perception (family phenomenology), and communication (family behaviour) when assessing interaction in families of patients with severe mental disorder. They also point to a need for theoretical integration between the different concepts of family interaction of different clinical and theoretical traditions.