# Implications of Family-Oriented Psychotherapy for Hereditary Angioedema Management: A Case Series

## TL;DR

This paper explores how family-oriented psychotherapy can help manage hereditary angioedema by addressing shared stressors and improving coping strategies within families.

## Contribution

The paper introduces the novel application of family-centered psychotherapy to manage hereditary conditions like HAE.

## Key findings

- Family-oriented psychotherapy can alleviate symptom burden and improve quality of life in chronic conditions.
- Hereditary conditions like HAE introduce unique family stressors that may benefit from family-centered coping strategies.
- The case series demonstrates the potential of this approach in managing inherited conditions.

## Abstract

The role of psychotherapy in the management of chronic conditions has been widely explored and supported. The current approach to the utilization of family-oriented psychotherapy in treatment plans is individualized to the patient and focused on the development of personal coping skills alongside identifying and changing negative thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Alleviation of symptom burden, improvement in psychiatric co-morbidities like anxiety and depression, and enhancement of quality of life have all been found to be associated with incorporating family-oriented psychotherapy in the management of chronic conditions. In contrast, heritable conditions, such as hereditary angioedema (HAE), have not been the center of extensive research. Heritable conditions introduce a new category of stressors that require management like the anxiety of a parent, a sibling, a child, or another family member decompensating at the same time as oneself. Family-centered psychotherapy focuses on discussing the stressors of the family unit and the development of coping strategies to prevent the time course of one family member’s condition from exacerbating another family member’s condition. This model has been utilized for families with separate chronic conditions, but its role and effectiveness in managing inherited conditions have room for investigation. This paper presents a case series on a family engaging in family-centered psychotherapy for HAE.