Psychological Explanations

Question 1

What is family dysfunctions?

Answer 1

-schizophrenia is caused by abnormal communication patterns within a family

Question 2

What are schizophrenogenic mothers?

Answer 2

-mothers who cause it
-based on patients early experiences with S mothers

Question 3

What are characteristics of the schizophrenic genic mother?

Answer 3

-cold, rejecting, controlling and creat family tension and secrecy
-leads to distrust and paranoia delusions

Question 4

What is the double bind theory?

Answer 4

-children who frequently get contradictory messages from parents

Question 5

What happens to the child in the double bind theory?

Answer 5

-children regularly trapped in situations where they fear of doing the wrong thing
-fear of what is right and what is wrong
-cannot express feelings about unfairness of the situation
-world is confusing and dangerous = unorganised thinking and delusions

Question 6

What are expressed emotions?

Answer 6

-Brown
-criticism and hostility leads to relapse
-level of emotion expressed towards schizophrenic patient

Question 7

What are characteristics of a relapsed patients?

Answer 7

-verbal criticism
-hostility towards them
-emotional over involvement in their life

Question 8

What does high levels of EE cause?

Answer 8

-stress
-a primary explanation for relapse in patients

Question 9

What is a study to support EE?

Answer 9

-Linszen
-x4 more likely to relapse if returning to a high EE family compared to a low EE family

Question 10

What is an alternative view to EE?

Answer 10

-Laing argues that we call schizophrenia is actually a reasonable response to an inane world
-Madness and Families
-looked at several families and how they view each other and communicate
-found lies were often perpetuated in the interest of family politics
-the views are strongly maintained that it’s impossible for a vulnerable child to be able determine what the actual truth is

Question 11

What does Laing’s view mean?

Answer 11

-people with schizophrenia have a lower tolerance for intense environmental stimuli and emotional interactions
-these environments result in stress beyond the impaired coping mechanisms of the patient
-triggering schizophrenic episodes

Question 12

What did Noll find about a solution to EE?

Answer 12

-environments which are more supportive and less emotionally demanding may help the patient with S to reduce their dependence on antipsychotic medication
-help reduce the likelihood of relapse

Question 13

What is key about EE?

Answer 13

-EE is not thought to be a causal factor of schizophrenia
-but important in maintaining schizophrenic behaviour

Question 14

Explain how family dysfunction might be involved in schizophrenia. Refer to a type of family dysfunction

Answer 14

-risk of schizophrenia increases in line with genetic similarity to a relative with the disorder
- role of double blind study and schizophrenic mother
-dysfunction leads to development

Question 15

What is support for family dysfunction?

Answer 15

-Stirling
-evidence for different info processing in S patients
-compared 30 patients with S and 18 non S on cognitive tasks
-S patients took x2 longer to suppress the impulse to read the word and to name colour instead
-support friths theory of central control dysfunction
-not clear is these cognitions are merely the proximal cause

Question 16

What is a contradiction to family dysfunction?

Answer 16

-evidence is often retrospective
-individuals are looking back at their experiences from present
-symptoms may have distorted the patients recall of their childhood experiences
-creates problem with validity of evidence
-if only measuring which what they think was their experience = subjective and unscientific
-brings into question the credibility of patients responses

Question 17

What is an alternative to family dysfunctions?

Answer 17

-biological explanation
-diathesis stress model
-diathesis may be biological or the stressor may be psychological
-provides a comprehensive explanation of how an individual could develop S symptoms by combining 2 explanations

Question 18

What is a practical application of family dysfunction?

Answer 18

-if we understand the cause they can provide a treatment
-CBT patients are encouraged to challenge faulty cognitions
-NICE found that this was an effective treatment for S
-found that when compared with antipsychotic drugs, CBT was more effective in reducing symptom severity
-suggests this approach is useful in treatment as its helped people live a high quality of life

Question 19

What is an issue and debate of family dysfunction?

Answer 19

-nurture argument
-suggests S has been developed and maintained due to an individuals environment and upbringing
-this is a reductionist view point as if fails to consider other approaches
-this is an issue as there is strong evidence for the biological argument
-a more holistic view would provide more insight into the development of S

Question 20

What is an issue and debate to the schizophrenicgenic mother?

Answer 20

-shows gender bias
-suggests that women play a key destructive role in the onset of S in a child
-alpha bias - focuses on differences
-also socially sensitive = ethical implications
-find a way to present findings to avoid further bias and discrimination

Question 21

What is the cognitive explanation?

Answer 21

-explanations that focus on mental processes such as thinking, language and attention

Question 22

How is disruption to normal thought processing characterised by schizophrenia?

Answer 22

-reduced thought processing in ventral striatum = negative symptoms
-reduced processing of info in temporal and cingulate gyro = hallucinations
-lower levels suggests that cognition is likely to be impaired

Question 23

What is meta representation?

Answer 23

-Frith
-cognitive ability to reflect on thoughts and behaviours
-allows insight into our own intentions and goals
-interpret the actions of others

Question 24

What would happen if there was dysfunction in meta representation?

Answer 24

-disrupt our ability to recognise our own actions and thoughts as being carried out by ourselves rather than someone else
-explains hallucinations and hearing voices

Question 25

What is central control dysfunction?

Answer 25

-issues with the cognitive ability to suppress automatic responses while we perform deliberate actions
-speech poverty could result from the inability to suppress automatic thoughts and speech triggered by other thoughts

Question 26

What support is there for cognitive explanations?

Answer 26

-evidence for dysfunctional thought processing
-Stirling
-compared performance on a range of cognitive tasks in 30 with S and no S
-name the font colours of colour words
-suppress the tendency to read the words aloud
-people with S took longer
-cognitive processes of people with S are impaired

Question 27

What is a limitation of cognitive explanations?

Answer 27

-they explain the proximal origins of symptoms
-they explain what is happening now to produce symptoms
-distinct from distal explanations - that focus on what initially caused the condition
eg. family dysfunction
-unclear how genetic variation might lead o problems with meta representation/ central control
-only provide partial explanations for S