Ego-Strength and Family Environment of Schizophrenic Patients

Ego strength refers to the ability to maintain the ego by a cluster of traits that together contribute to good mental health. The traits usually considered important include tolerance of the pain of loss, disappointment, shame, or guilt; forgiveness of those who have caused an injury, with feelings of compassion rather than anger and retaliation; acceptance of substitutes and ability to defer gratification; persistence and perseverance in the pursuit of goals; openness, flexibility, and creativity in learning to adapt; and vitality and power in the activities of life. The psychiatric prognosis for a client correlates positively with ego strength. An attempt was made to study ego strength and family environment of patients with schizophrenia. A total of 60 subjects were randomly taken from Jodhpur city, among these 20 subjects were suffering from schizophrenia, 20 were suffering from neurotic disorders and remaining 20 were apparently normal. Hasan's Ego Strength and Family Environment Scale by Joshi and Vyas were administered. Data was analysed using one way ANOVA. Results reveal that on the measures of Ego-Strength, Neurotics and Schizophrenics differ significantly from Normal people, but there was no significant difference between Ego-Strength of Schizophrenics and Neurotics. On the measures of Family Environment, there was no statistical significant difference between the perception of family environment of schizophrenics, neurotics, and normal on relationship dimension, personal growth dimension and system maintenance dimension.