Identified patient , or "IP", is a term used in a clinical setting to describe the person in a dysfunctional family who has been unconsciously, or sometimes consciously, selected to lay blame upon to  draw attention away from the family's true inner conflicts, true problem behaviors, and their perpetrators. The identified patient is a  diversion and a scapegoat. This person, often a child,  is "the split-off false carrier of a breakdown in the entire family system," which may be a transgenerational disturbance or trauma.Peter L. Rudnytsky, Reading Psychoanalysis (2002) p. 44  The term is also used in the context of organizational management, in circumstances where an individual becomes the carrier of a group problem. Virginia Satir  viewed the identified patient as a way of both concealing and revealing a family's secret agendas.Sara E. Cooper, The Ties that Bind (2004) p. 17 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 therapyEric Berne, A Layman's Guide to Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis (Penguin 1976) p. 295 – with the ultimate goal of relieving the IP of the broader family feelings he or she has been carrying.Skynner/Cleese, Families p. 104 In such circumstances, not only the IP but their siblings as well may end up feeling the benefits.Berne, p. 295 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 that requires the constant care and attention of the parents. In Dibs, 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".Virginia Axline, Dibs In Search of Self (Penguin 1975) page 80 Gregory Bateson considered that 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".Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972) p. 237 and p. 243 Criticism Extending the original concept of the identified patient, the anti-psychiatry movement went on to argue that it was the family that was mad, rather than the individual the family had identified as 'sick'Jenny Diski, The Sixties (London 2009) p. 126 – positing also that the latter might in fact be the least disturbed member of the family nexus.Mary Barnes and Joseph Berke, Mary Barnes Penguin 1974) p. 84 Literary and biographical T. S. Eliot in The Family Reunion says of the protagonist: "It is possible You are the consciousness of your unhappy family, Its bird sent flying through the purgatorial flame".T. S. Eliot, The Complete Poems and Plays (London 1985) p. 333 Carl Jung, who viewed the individual neurosis as deriving from the whole familial or social group ,David Sedgwick, Introduction to Jungian Psychotherapy (London 2006) p. 63 considered himself a case in point: "I feel very strongly that I am under the influence of things or questions which were 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".C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (London 1983) p. 260
Identified patient is a clinical term often heard in family therapy discussion. It describes one family member in a dysfunctional family who expresses the family's authentic inner conflicts. Usually the "designated patient" expresses their physical symptoms unconsciously, unaware they are making overt, dysfunctional family dynamics, which have been covert and no one can talk about at home. Occasionally the identified patient is partly conscious of why and how they have become the focus of concern in the family system. As a family systems dynamic, the overt symptoms of identified patient draw attention away from the "elephants in the living room no one can talk about" which need to be discussed, such as a pending separation or divorce. If covert abuse occurs between family members, the overt symptoms can draw attention away from the perpetrator(s). 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.Peter L. Rudnytsky, Reading Psychoanalysis (2002) p. 44 In organizational management The term is also used in analyzing dysfunction in businesses where an individual becomes the carrier of a group problem. 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.Sara E. Cooper, The Ties that Bind (2004) p. 17 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 therapyEric Berne, A Layman's Guide to Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis (Penguin 1976) p. 295 – with the ultimate goal of relieving the IP of the broader family feelings he or she has been carrying.Skynner/Cleese, Families p. 104 In such circumstances, not only the IP but their siblings as well may end up feeling the benefits.Berne, p. 295 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, 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".Virginia Axline, Dibs In Search of Self (Penguin 1975) page 80 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".Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972) p. 237 and p. 243 Criticism Extending the original concept of the identified patient, the anti-psychiatry movement went on to argue it is the family who is chiefly mad, rather than the individual the family identifies as 'sick'Jenny Diski, The Sixties (London 2009) p. 126 – positing also that the latter might in fact be the least disturbed member of the family nexus.Mary Barnes and Joseph Berke, Mary Barnes Penguin 1974) p. 84 Literary and biographical T. S. Eliot in The Family Reunion says of the protagonist: "It is possible You are the consciousness of your unhappy family, Its bird sent flying through the purgatorial flame".T. S. Eliot, The Complete Poems and Plays (London 1985) p. 333 Carl Jung, who viewed individual neurosis as often deriving from whole family or social groups ,David Sedgwick, Introduction to Jungian Psychotherapy (London 2006) p. 63 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".C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (London 1983) p. 260
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, or "IP", is a term used in a clinical setting to describe the person
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has been unconsciously, or sometimes consciously, selected to lay blame upon to
expresses the family's authentic inner conflicts. Usually the "designated patient" expresses their physical symptoms unconsciously, unaware they are making overt, dysfunctional family dynamics, which have been covert and no one can talk about at home. Occasionally the identified patient is partly conscious of why and how they have become the focus of concern in the family system.
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As a family systems dynamic, the overt symptoms of identified patient
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family's true inner conflicts, true problem behaviors, and their perpetrators.
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kind of
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In organizational management
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the context of organizational management, in circumstances
analyzing dysfunction in businesses
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the wellspring of family systems theory, who knew Bateson,
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that requires
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that it was the family that was
it is the family who is chiefly
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had identified
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deriving from the whole familial or social group
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which were