Understanding Family Impact: Reviewing Jones (2004) on Mental Illness

This report provides a comprehensive review of David Jones' 2004 study, "Family and mental illness: Working with loss and ambivalence," published in The British Journal of Social Work. The study explores the psychosocial challenges and experiences of loss faced by families with members diagnosed with serious mental illness. Through interviews with forty-seven participants, including mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters of individuals with mental illness, Jones found that relatives often experience feelings of shame, fear, anger, and guilt, leading to social isolation and a diminished quality of life. The review emphasizes the importance of mental health professionals acknowledging and addressing these negative feelings to support the families in coping with the condition and improving their overall well-being. The report concludes by reflecting on the insights gained from the review, highlighting the significance of understanding the family's perspective and the role of professionals in facilitating open communication and support.

Running head: FAMILY AND MENTAL ILLNESS
Family and Mental Illness
Name
Institutional Affiliation

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Family and Mental Illness
Coping with a family member suffering from mental illness can be stressful and
challenging, especially because of psychosocial issues that affect the people caring for the
patient. The psychosocial challenges arise from stigma attached to mental diseases and obstacles
that the family members experience when trying to care for their loved one. In order to
understand the complex challenges that families living with people diagnosed with mental illness
encounter, this paper provides a review of a research study conducted by David Jones in 2004.
The article “Family and mental illness: Working with loss and ambivalence” published in The
British Journal of Social Work examines the complex experiences of loss among families with a
member diagnosed with serious mental illness and partnerships between professionals and care
givers can help relieve the feeling of loss and chronic frustration that the families experience.
This review is divided into three sections where the first section focuses on the aims,
methodology, and findings from the study. The second section discusses the reflections from this
review and the concluding part is a summary of the review.
The aim of the study was to understand the experiences of the family members of people
diagnosed with mental illness. A total of forty-seven participants took part in the study, with two
methods of recruitment being used. The first recruitment criterion was on people who had had a
family member admitted to a psychiatric unit for six months or more. The second inclusion
criteria was a random sample of relatives of people who had been referred to community
psychiatrists and had experienced a hospital treatment. The total sample for the study included
fifteen mothers, eight fathers, eight brothers, and eight sisters. The mean age of the participants
was thirty-three.

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Jones (2004) used the interview method as a method of investigation. Structured and
unstructured questions were used because the researcher wanted to understand the experiences
and perspectives of families included in the study. The choice of interview as a method of
investigation was to help the researcher to understand the emotional and psychosocial
experiences of the selected group of participants. During the interview, the researchers explained
to the participants the purpose of the interview and sought their consent before including them in
the study. The researcher changed the names of the participants and altered their details altered
to conceal their identities for ethical reasons.
The research study conducted by Jones (2004) found that the relatives of people
diagnosed of mental illness view it as a loss. The loss is psychosocial and has significant impact
on the family members taking care of the psychiatric patient. Since other people in the
community do not understand mental illness, the relatives of the patient may experience shame
and fear when communicating with other people around them. The social distance created
between the family members and other people in the society creates psychosocial challenges that
affect the quality of life in the patient and the caregivers. In cases where the patient had
recovered from the psychiatric disorder, some relatives felt a sense of betrayal because the
patients could no longer be respected by other people in the community. This created stigma,
where the family members felt excluded from the community because many people did not
understand the nature of the mental illness. Some relatives also expressed feelings of fear,
anger, and guilt when they felt that they had not done enough to cure their loved ones of mental
illness. Some relatives were also afraid that they could lose their loved ones to suicide due to the
frustration that the patients were going through.

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From the findings of the study, Jones (2004) explained that it is the role of the mental
health professional to relieve the relatives of the affected person from fear, pain, and the sense of
loss that they undergo when dealing with the mental illness. The researcher recommended that it
is important for health care professionals to allow the negative feelings to be part of the dialogue
when helping the relatives of the patient. The importance of incorporating negative feelings in
the dialogue is that the relatives will feel that the professional understands them and they can
open up, leading to healing from stress and psychosocial challenges that affect their quality of
life.
This review has provided me with significant insights on how mental illness affects the
families of the patient and how mental health professional can intervene to help the family of the
patient. I did not know that families of patients suffering from mental illness are victims of the
disease as well. Additionally, I thought that it is the role of the health care professional to help
the patient by suppressing negative feelings such as those of loss and fear in the patient.
However, from this review, I have learned that stigma affects the quality of life in relatives of
the patient. Some relatives of the patient do not have people that can listen to them and
understand the challenges that they go through when living with a person suffering from mental
illness. It is, therefore, the role of the professional to help the relatives of the patient by allowing
negative feelings to be part of the dialogue when conversing with them. The best intervention is
to be aware of the negative feelings that the relatives of the patient may be going through instead
of avoiding the feelings.
Relatives of people suffering from mental illness experience feelings of anger, shame,
and loss at the same time. The stigma they go through when handling these feelings affects their

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quality of life. Professionals can contribute to the quality of life of the family members by
allowing them to express negative feelings. However, this should not be done directly because it
may trigger shame and anger. The professional should create a social environment where the
relatives of the patient feel comfortable to open up and share what they are experiencing in
coping with the condition. The role of the professional is to support the relatives of the patient to
cope with psychosocial challenges they face as they come to terms with the problem they are
facing.
References
Jones, W., D. (2004). Family and mental illness: Working with loss and ambivalence. The
British Journal of Social Work, 38(7), 961-979.