PAPER 3 - SCHIZOPHRENIA - psychological explanations for schizophrenia: family dysfunction and cognitive explanations Flashcards
what is included in psychological explanations for schizophrenia?
- cognitive aspects (schemas, irrational perceptions)
- family dysfunction (abnormal patterns of communication)
- results in cognitive and family therapy
what is involved in family dysfunction?
- double bind theory
- expressed emotion (EE)
what is the double bind theory?
- contradictory messages from parents e.g. “i love you” while turning away in disgust
- reduces childs ability to respond as one message invalidates the other
- prevents development of an internal coherent construction of reality which can manifest in schizophrenic symptoms
what is expressed emotion?
- negative emotional environment where there’s a high degree of criticism &/or hostility towards the individual or emotion indicating over-involvement and concern with the sufferer
- relatives of patients tend to talk more & listen less
- a patient returning to a high EE family is 4 times more likely to relapse
- its suggested that that those with SZ have low tolerance for intense environmental stimuli so the negative emotional climate causes stress beyond patients ability to cope
what are the 3 cognitive explanations for schizophrenia?
- dysfunctional thinkin
- metarepresentation dysfunction
- central control dysfunction
what is dysfunctional thinking?
- focus on role of mental processing in ventral striatum associated with negative symptoms & reduced processing of info
- temporal and cingulate gyri associated with hallucinations
- low level of info processing suggests impaired cognition
what is metarepresentation dysfunction?
- metarepresentation is the cognitive ability to reflect on thoughts and behaviour, allowing self insight to goals & intentions & to interpret behaviour of others
- dysfunction of this would impair the ability to recognise own actions & thoughts as belonging to ourselves
- this explains hallucinations and delusions being like thought insertion
what is central control dysfunction?
- individuals inability to suppress automatic responses when carrying out deliberate actions
- results in speech poverty and thought disorder e.g. sufferers experience thought derailment because every word triggers an association and an automatic response which cant be suppressed
what evidence is there to support the view of family dysfunction as an explanation for the development of schizophrenia?
(EVALUATION OF FAMILY DYSFUNCTION)
- double bind theory - researchers found that schizophrenics reported higher recall of double bind statements by their mothers than non-schizophrenics
- Tienari et al - found adopted children who had schizophrenic biological parents were more likely to become ill themselves then children with non-schizophrenic biological parents. this difference only emerged in situations where adopted family were rated as disturbed
(suggests illness only manifests itself under appropriate environmental conditions, so genetic vulnerability alone isn’t sufficient)
why do these explanations lack support for the link between childhood trauma and schizophrenia?
(EVALUATION OF FAMILY DYSFUNCTION)
- no evidence support for traditional family-based theories like the schizophrenogenic mother & double bind theory
- both these theories are based on clinical observation of patients and informal assessment of personality of patients’ mothers
- no link between childhood trauma and SZ in family explanations
why should this line of research be abandoned by psychologists, due to it being socially sensitive?
(EVALUATION OF FAMILY DYSFUNCTION)
- research is socially sensitive because it can lead to parent-blaming
- for parents already having to watch their child experience the symptoms of SZ and take responsibility for their care, to be blamed would make things worse
how is evidence from using the stroop test used to support firths central control theory?
(EVALUATION OF COGNITIVE EXPLANATIONS)
stroop test - participants had to name the font colours of coloured words to had to suppress tendency to read words out loud
- people with schizophrenia took longer, cognitive processes impaired
what are proximal origins of symptoms?
- cognitive explanations for schizophrenia are proximal because they explain what is happening now to produce symptoms
- distal explanations focus on what initially caused the condition
why is it argued that cognitive explanations are only partially addressing the disorder?
(EVALUATION OF COGNITIVE EXPLANATIONS)
childhood trauma and genetic variation might lead to problems with central control or metarepresentation so cognitive theories can only provide a partial explanation for SZ
what is the view that cognitive problems associated with schizophrenia is partly a genetic problem?
(EVALUATION OF COGNITIVE EXPLANATIONS)
abnormal cognition associated with schizophrenia may be partly a genetic origin and the result of abnormal brain development
- this would suggest that SZ is a biological condition
