Expressed emotion and familial interaction: a study with agoraphobic and obsessive-compulsive patients and their relatives

Patients with panic disorder with agoraphobia (n = 40) or obsessive- compulsive disorder (n = 61) participated in a 10-min problem-solving interaction with their primary relative. Relatives were categorized as hostile or nonhostile toward the patient on the basis of a measure of expressed emotion (EE). Observed interactions between patients and their hostile relatives, relative to those of dyads with a nonhostile relative, were marked by higher rates of relatives' criticism and of patients' negativity but not by higher rates of negative reciprocity. Analyses of sequences indicated that the dyads with a hostile relative had a higher rate of sequences in which the relative was first critical and the patient then negative than was the case for dyads with nonhostile relatives. Moreover, hostile relatives were more frequently critical than nonhostile relatives whether patients' preceding behavior was positive, negative, or neutral. The findings are consistent with the stress-vulnerability model of the effect of EE on mental health, in that patients living with a high EE relative appear to be exposed to higher levels of interpersonal stress.