Parental transactional style deviance as a possible indicator of risk for schizophrenia.
The presence of a pattern of parental transactional style deviance on the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) (a significant attribute of parents of offspring with schizophrenia spectrum disorders) was used to identify a group of disturbed nonpsychotic adolescents hypothesized to be at high risk for subsequently developing schizophreniform psychopathology. High-risk male adolescents came from two symptom groups, withdrawn adolescents and adolescents in active family conflict, which are symptom patterns similar to the premorbid pictures of two schizophrenia subtypes. High-risk parents also tended to show transactional style deviance in direct interaction with their child and in a written statement describing their child's problem. The degree of risk was significantly related to the amount of therapy in which the family was subsequently engaged and, at a four-year follow-up, to the level of adjustment of the adolescents seen earlier in the project.
D000293:Adolescent; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000150:complications; D005196:Family Therapy; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010290:Parents; D011613:Psychotherapy; D012306:Risk; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000235:genetics*; D012934:Social Isolation; D013803:Thematic Apperception Test