Questions and discussion are encouraged during the workshop and clinicians are also available during the breaks. The clinician's role is of a teacher rather than a therapist, providing information, support and suggestions. The clinician also encourages family members to share their experiences with each other, in order to decrease their sense of isolation. After the workshop, patients and families are invited to ongoing monthly support groups which meet for 90 minutes and continue the theme of the workshop by providing education and support, often using guest speakers to discuss specific topics such as vocational services and stress reduction techniques. The atmosphere is informal and group members are encouraged to interact.
Many groups develop their own traditions such as holiday parties or hobby nights.
In the Treatment Strategies model, some families also receive individual sessions focusing on learning and practicing specific ways to communicate and solve problems in less stressful ways. In both the groups and the individual family sessions, clinicians reiterate the biological nature of the illness and how families are not to blame. The family intervention involved both individual sessions and multiple family support groups. It was aimed at providing education, reducing EE in the family and increasing the patient's independence from high EE relatives. Patients were selected based on having high EE relatives.