This new family ideal takes an entire book to elaborate (with important questions still
left unanswered), but can be briefly summarized as follows: it is the
voluntary lifetime union of a woman and a man who
parent their own children in a relationship characterized by love, justice and equal regard.
Baseline characteristics of the 87 patients were as follows: mean age 38.6 (SD 11.0) years; 69 men; 64 single; 24 lived alone, 17 lived with a partner, 31 lived with
parents, and the remainder with others; 61
left school at 16 years; 76 were unemployed, five were in paid employment, six were in
voluntary employment or similar, two had never worked; 64 were unskilled and 21 were skilled or professional; 78 had a diagnosis of schizophrenia, eight had schizoaffective psychosis, and two had delusional disorder; the median (range) duration of illness was 11 (1 - 42) years; median (range) number of admissions to hospital was 3 (0 - 20); 10 had a forensic psychiatric history; and 12 had a history of substance abuse.