Expressed emotion, a measure of family attitudes toward psychiatric
patients that is predictive of relapse, has attracted renewed attention
recently as interest in the chronic psychiatric patient has widened. The
authors review the development of the concept and the limits of its
meaning. In seeking the core clinical construct underlying the expressed
emotion variable, the authors also review recent studies of the
relationship of expressed emotion to family interaction patterns,
physiological arousal states, precipitants of relapse, and parental
personality style. While family intervention studies are necessary to
demonstrate that expressed emotion influences outcome in psychiatric
patients, methodological limitations in currently available studies leave
this issue unresolved.Abstract Teaser