Identified patient

Key takeaways

Identified patient belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Identified patient to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Identified patient from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Identified patient (IP) is a clinical term often used in family therapy discussion. It describes one family member in a dysfunctional family who is used as an expression of the family's authentic inner conflicts. As a family system is dynamic, the overt symptoms of an identified patient draw attention away from the "elephants in the living room" no one can talk about which need to be discussed. If covert abuse occurs between family members, the overt symptoms can draw attention away from the perpetrators. The identified patient is a kind of diversion and a kind of scapegoat. Often a child, this is "the split-off false carrier of a breakdown in the entire family system," which may be a transgenerational disturbance or trauma. While the concept has evolved beyond Jung's original interpretation, some modern authors still use the term to describe a family member who is blamed for the family's problems, even though all members experience mental illness, rather than the one officially labeled as mentally ill – positing that the IP may actually be the least troubled member of a dysfunctional family nexus.

Origins and characteristics The term emerged from the work of the Bateson Project on family homeostasis, as a way of identifying a largely unconscious pattern of behavior whereby an excess of painful feelings in a family lead to one member being identified as the cause of all the difficulties – a scapegoating of the IP. The identified patient – also called the "symptom-bearer" or "presenting problem" – may display unexplainable emotional or physical symptoms, and is often the first person to seek help, perhaps at the request of the family. However, while family members will typically express concern over the IP's problems, they may instinctively react to any improvement on the identified patient's part by attempting to reinstate the status quo. Virginia Satir, the wellspring of family systems theory, who knew Bateson, viewed the identified patient as a way of both concealing and revealing a family's secret agendas. Conjoint family therapy stressed accordingly the importance in group therapy of bringing not only the identified patient but the extended family in which their problems arose into the therapy – with the ultimate goal of relieving the IP of the broader family feelings they have been carrying. In such circumstances, not only the IP but their siblings as well may end up feeling the benefits. R. D. Laing saw the IP as a function of the family nexus: "the person who gets diagnosed is part of a wider network of extremely disturbed and disturbing patterns of communication." Later formulations suggest that the patient may be an "emissary" of sorts from the family to the wider world, in an implicit familial call for help, as with the reading of juvenile delinquency as a coded cry for help by a child on their parents' behalf. There may then be an element of altruism in the IP's behavior – 'playing' sick to prevent worse things happening in the family, such as a total family breakdown.

Examples In a family where the parents need to assert themselves as powerful figures and caretakers, often due to their own insecurities, they may designate one or more of their children as being inadequate, unconsciously assigning to the child the role of someone who cannot cope by themselves. For example, the child may exhibit some irrational problem requiring the constant care and attention of the parents. In Dibs in Search of Self, an account of a child therapy, Virginia Axline considered that perhaps the parents, "quite unconsciously...chose to see Dibs as a mental defective rather than as an intensified personification of their own emotional and social inadequacy". Gregory Bateson considered sometimes "the identified patient sacrifices himself to maintain the sacred illusion that what the parent says makes sense", and that "the identified patient exhibits behavior which is almost a caricature of that loss of identity which is characteristic of all the family members".

Literary and biographical In the play The Family Reunion, T. S. Eliot writes of the protagonist: "It is possible You are the consciousness of your unhappy family, Its bird sent flying through the purgatorial flame". Carl Jung, who viewed individual neurosis as often deriving from whole family or social groups, considered himself a case in point: "I feel very strongly I am under the influence of things or questions left incomplete and unanswered by my parents and grandparents and more distant ancestors...an impersonal karma within a family, which is passed on from parents to children". The term is also used in analyzing dysfunction in businesses where an individual becomes the carrier of a group problem.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Identified patient

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Identified patient claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Identified patient before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Identified patient ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Identified patient

In research: Identified patient appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Identified patient in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Identified patient is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Family, Family therapy, Interpersonal relationships, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Identified patient outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study Identified patient in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Identified patient means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Identified patient out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Identified patient in simple terms?

Identified patient (IP) is a clinical term often used in family therapy discussion. It describes one family member in a dysfunctional family who is used as an expression of the family's authentic inner conflicts.

Why does Identified patient matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Identified patient?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Identified patient.