What is "Identified Patient"?
Question:
Answers:
Good question!
The "Identified Patient" is used in family therapy to indicate which child is causing all the problems in a family and whom, unless cured or removed, prevents the family from an otherwise wonderful life. It is usually a child or teen, in a dysfunctional family who:
1) Gets scapegoated and blamed for a family's problems
2) Has emotional problems that are not a mental illness, but a normal response to the stress of dealing with an unhealthy family in denial
3) Blows the whistle on a dysfunctional family's problems
Phrase originated because family therapists recognized that the child "identified" as the patient is not necessarily the one who has problems.
Example:
John is dropping out of school and doing drugs and his parents want him institutionalized, but it turns out his mother is an abusive alcoholic and his father is chronically absent. John is the identified patient.
Any text about family therapy will offer a similar explanation. Particularly anything written by Salvador Minuchin.
Here also is a link for an article in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy.
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs...
Hope this helps.
Identified Patient is nothing that I am aware of. Did a pretty big search and have no idea what you are talking about.
As I have heard it used, it means that the key life-role for that person is to be a patient. They no longer have a primary role of 'wife' or 'student' or 'carpenter.' You might find information about this at a psychiatric reference.
"Identified patient" is a term often used by marriage and family therapists. Essentially, it is the person who (theoretically) has "the problem" (or often more accurately: is serving as the outward expression of the family's problem). For example, a child with anorexia may frequently require family therapy (where all members of the family participate). The anorexic child, in this situation, would be the "identified patient".
More Questions & Answers...