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Fam Proc 1:101-102, 1962

FAMILY TREATMENT OF SCHIZOPHRENIA: A SYMPOSIUM

Opening Remarks
HAROLD M. HILDRETH, PH.D.a
aConsulting Psychologist, Community Services Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland.

Family therapy is one of the "new frontiers" of the mental health field. As a pioneering endeavor it holds much promise for the future, not only as a therapeutic technique but even more importantly as a method of gaining deeper understanding of man in terms of his most fundamental human relationshipsthose of the family. Work in this field is arduous, and few professional or scientific people have yet undertaken it. The participants in this symposium represent a fair proportion of those who have. In the papers which follow you will not find neat and polished theoretical formulations, nor will you hear reports of precise and rigidly controlled experimentation. What you will get is an opportunity to look over the shoulders of those who are activelyand I may say, perspiringlyworking in this field. It is a look-in at work-in-progress. You will see through their eyes the sorts of things they observe, feel with them the kinds of experiences they have, and share their strenuous efforts to conceptualize what is going on in the home setting of a family revealing part of its nature in schizophrenic reaction. The papers describe graphically the new type of material which comes from direct on-the-spot observation of families in their own milieuxclinical observation of reactions "in vivo," as it were. They also report beginning attempts at systematic observation and the search for means of evaluating the process of family therapy. Awareness of the potential theoretical import of what these investigators are observing is reflected in their papers, as is their recognition that new conceptual tools will probably be needed for handling this new order of data. There is a long way to go on this new frontier, but at least we have begun.