Families of mentally ill people are generally two-generation families, so that the "fall out" of one of the parents or family members from earning money quickly and effectively reduces the material status of their households. This forces the healthy parents to become over-active in earning and gradually shift the sick person to household management activities and services for the family community, if he or she is obviously able to perform them. This shift, however, does not involve placing the management of the family finances and those spheres of activity involving responsibility in the hands of the sick person. The sick adult children in the families studied most often do not leave the family home (or return to it if the illness does not allow them to function independently), remaining dependent on their parents (they themselves receive low pensions and cannot work). The families surveyed maintain social contacts (disturbed) with distant or closer relatives, the vast majority not hiding the fact of the mental illness. The situation of the person with the illness in the family is difficult - the longer the illness lasts (and it makes major changes to the functioning of the person with the illness), the more isolated the person becomes, and their roles are taken over by others, while they themselves remain on the sidelines of family life.

In conclusion, it has to be said that the material collected documents the extensive consequences of the illness on family life, showing to what extent the whole family is entangled in the illness. The changes caused by the illness - ranging from those that can be considered positive (such as an increase in care for the emotional climate), through changes that are somewhat obvious or sometimes forced (such as an increase in the care function towards the sick), to dysfunctional changes (restriction or withdrawal from certain functions, such as the economic function, the socialisation and control function) -occur with varying intensity depending on the family structure, the severity and duration of the illness and the role of the sick person.

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The actual social extent of the illness, through its family repercussions, turns out to be far broader than is apparent from statistical and epidemiological data on the incidence of mental illness in the population. These data are merely statistical material. The family context only shows how far the family is complicit in the illness. These are the effects of the illness (in addition to the clinical changes in personality), which neither pharmaceuticals nor a stay in the best hospital can alleviate. It is worth emphasising that the impact of the illness on family life cannot be seen solely in unambiguously negative terms, as it sometimes constitutes a mobilising factor for the entire family, strengthening its cohesion and releasing family activity and solidarity.