Medical practice with 7 families with a schizophrenic son or daughter regularly encountered difficulties in accomplishing medical evaluations and treatment. The use of medical services by the parents and the son or daughter was extensively involved in intense emotional processes. Two modes of relating are described as an acting out of feelings of helplessness and an acting out of a denial of these feelings. A variation is described in which the acting out of feelings of helplessness took the form of a concern about another.The emotional pressures tended to lead to inaccurate medical overdiagnosis and overtreatment in response to the acted out feelings of helplessness and to inaccurate medical estimates of good health in response to the acted out denial pattern. When medical findings differed from the emotional view, the clinical relationship could reach a difficult point. The problems in the medical experiences appeared to be one clear evidence of general processes pervading the family emotional life.Abstract Teaser