Psychological Explanation: Family Dysfunction

Question 1

✅[FAMILY DYSFUNCTION]: HIGHLIGHTS THE ROLE OF ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES:

Answer 1

• Read et al. (2005) reviewed 46 studies of child abuse and found that 69% of female and 59% of male in-patients with schizophrenia had experienced physical, sexual, or both types of abuse during childhood. Furthermore, Berry et al. (2008) found that adults with insecure attachments to their primary caregivers were more likely to develop schizophrenia.
• These findings provide strong evidence that adverse early experiences can contribute to the onset of schizophrenia, supporting psychological explanations such as family dysfunction and attachment theory.
• By considering these environmental factors, psychological explanations offer a more holistic understanding of schizophrenia. This improves the validity of the explanation, as it accounts for the complex interaction between childhood experiences and the disorder’s development.

Question 2

❌ FAILS TO ACCOUNT FOR THE ROLE OF BIOLOGICAL FACTORS:

Answer 2

• Family dysfunction theories, such as expressed emotion and childhood trauma, focus on environmental stressors but overlook genetic vulnerabilities and neurobiological factors that may predispose individuals to schizophrenia.
• This raises questions about whether the symptoms caused by family dysfunction are truly the same as those arising from biological causes or if they represent different pathways to similar outcomes. For example, the diathesis-stress model suggests that schizophrenia is the result of an interaction between biological predispositions and environmental triggers, making family dysfunction an incomplete explanation on its own.
• By ignoring biological contributions, the family dysfunction view risks oversimplifying a complex disorder, reducing its validity as a standalone explanation for schizophrenia.