ABSTRACT
As the first signs of abnormality are recognized, families experience turbulent feelings: intense stress, insecurity, and pain. The development from the moment of first recognition to the first major breakdown, which usually necessitates a decision to seek psychiatric help, varies greatly in its length. How individual family members live during this period also seems to depend on their location in the family and, most importantly, how they interpret the patient’s abnormality. But parents, siblings, and spouses all live with enormous anxiety, puzzlement, and a sense of uncertainty, not knowing what is going on with their loved one. They watch powerlessly as he or she turns into “a bit of stranger,” as one mother put it.
