Conceptual approaches to studying family caregiving for persons with severe mental illness

This article critically analyzes the conceptual frameworks commonly used to study family caregivers who have a family member with a severe mental ill-ness. Those frameworks that are commonly in use present significant limita-tions to the study of the family as a whole. In contrast, the Family Resiliency Model permits family level analysis. The authors present this model and argue for its use in studying families with members who have a severe mental illness. BACKGROUND Since the 1960s, research on the consequences of an individual’s mental illness on family members has revealed that the illness is dis-tressing both to the ill person and to the person’s family (Chesla, 1988; Maurin & Boyd, 1990). Living with a severely mentally ill relative means that the family has to cope with the unpredictable nature of psychotic symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, cognitive defects, and mood changes, as well as the social stigma associated with the disease (Chafetz & Barnes, 1989; Chesla, 1988; Guarnaccia &amp