Psychological Explanations

Question 1

what are the types of family dysfunction

Answer 1

-schizophrenogenic mother
-double bind theory
-expressed emotion

Question 2

what are the types of cognitive explanations

Answer 2

metarepresentation
central control

Question 3

schizophrenogenic mother

Answer 3

fromm reichenmann (1948) psychodynamic explanation based of patients accounts of their childhood
-mother is cold rejecting controlling
-creating a tense environment
tension and secrecy causes paranoia leading to distrust and symptoms of schizophrenia

Question 4

double bind theory

Answer 4

bateson (1972) communication between parent and child causes confusion
-child misbehaves, parent withdraws their love as a punishment and child doesn’t understand why
-they develop understanding that the world is complex and confusing
-> this creates paranoia and other symptoms

Question 5

expressed emotion

Answer 5

the negative emotion towards a person with schizophrenia from a carer
-verbal criticism
-hostility
-emotional over involvement in their life
high EE towards schizophrenic cause stress
-relapse of symptoms
-trigger onset in vulnerable people

Question 6

what is dysfunctional thinking

Answer 6

information processing doesn’t represent reality accurately

Question 7

what is metarepresentation

Answer 7

-cognitive ability to reflect thoughts and behaviour
leads to inability to recognise own actions

Question 8

what is central control

Answer 8

-suppressing automatic responses
leads to disorganised thoughts

Question 9

who came up with cognitive explanations

Answer 9

frith (1992)

Question 10

AO3 family dysfunction research support

Answer 10

includes insecure attachment and childhood trauma especially abuse
-Read (2005) schizophrenics more likely to have insecure attachment
-> 69% women 59% men had history of sexual abuse
-Mørkved (2017) most schizophrenic adults had childhood trauma

Question 11

AO3 family dysfunction lack of support

Answer 11

-no evidence to support importance or traditional family based theories
-theories are based of clinical observation and informal assessment
-cannot account for link between childhood trauma and schizophrenia

Question 12

AO3 cognitive explanations research support

Answer 12

stirling (2006) compared performance range of cognitive tasks in 30 people with and 30 without schizophrenia (stroop tasks)
-people with schizophrenia took nearly twice as long to complete the task
-cognitive processes are impaired

Question 13

AO3 cognitive explanation proximal explanation

Answer 13

-explain what is happening now to produce symptoms as distinct form distal explanations instead of what initially cause condition
->distal= genetic, family dysfunction
-unclear how these might lead to problems with cognitive explanations, only partial explanation