Psychological explanations for schizophrenia Flashcards
Family dysfunction: Schizophrenic mothers - rejecting and controlling
Fromm-Reichman psychodynamic explanation of patients’ early experiences of ‘schizophrenic mothers’ (mothers who cause schizophrenia)
These mothers are cold, rejecting and controlling, create a family climate of tension and secrecy. This leads to distrust and paranoid delusions and schizophrenia
Family dysfunction: Double-blind theory - conflicting family communication
Bateson et al described how a child may be regularly trapped in situations where they fear doing the wrong thing, but receive conflicting messages about what counts as wrong. They cannot express their feelings about the unfairness of the situation
When they ‘get it wrong’ (often) the child is punished by withdrawal of love - they learn the world is confusing and dangerous, leading to disorganised thinking and delusions
Family dysfunction: Expressed emotion - criticism and hostility lead to relapse
Expressed emotion is the level of emotion (mainly negative) expressed including:
- Verbal criticism of the person with schizophrenia
- Hostility towards them
- Emotional over-involvement in their life
Serious source of stress
- Can trigger a schizophrenic episode in someone who is vulnerable (e.g genes) or can lead to relapse
EVALUATION: Three points regarding family dysfunction
Evidence linking family dysfunction to schizophrenia
Poor evidence base for any of the explanations
Parental blame
EVALAUATION: Evidence linking family dysfunction to schizophrenia
P - One strength of these explanations is evidence linking family dysfunction to schizophrenia. Insecure attachmentand exposure to trauma during childhood, particularly abuse, are indicators of dysfunctional families.
E - Adults with schizophrenia are more likely to experience insecure attachment, especially type C or D, according to Read’s analysis. Further research by Read et al. revealed that a history of physical or sexual abuse is present in 69% of women and 59% of males with schizophrenia.
E - In addition, the majority of individuals with schizophrenia in a study by Morkved et al. mentioned at least one traumatic event from their childhood, likely to beabuse.
L - It is strongly agreedthat those with dysfunctional families are more vulnerable to developing schizophrenia
EVALUATION: Poor evidence base for any of the explanations
P - One limitation of family dysfunction is the poorly based evidence for any of the explanations
E - There is almost no evidence to support the importance of traditional family based theories e.g schizophrenic mother and double blind
E - Both theories are based on clinical observation of patients and informal assessment of the personality of the mothers of patients
L - This means that family explanations have not been able to explain the link between childhood trauma and schizophrenia
EVALUATION: Parental blame
P - Research into the link between family dysfunction and schizophrenia can pose quite a dilemma
E - Although early explanations for the family schizophrenia have no research support, research in this area may be useful in showing that insecure attachment and experience of childhood trauma may effect individual vulnerability to schizophrenia
E - However, this field of study is extremely vulnerable to social circumstances since it can result in parent blaming, which contributes to the pain experienced by parents who must watch their child show symptoms of schizophrenia.
L - However, psychologists shouldn’t be afraid to look into sensitive topics. The benefits of such study will greatly outweigh the costs and have several real-world applications in attachment, childcare, parenting skills, social work and many more(how it will be used, validity of the research, etc.).
Cognitive explanations: Dysfunctional thought processing
Lower levels of information processing in some areas of the brain suggest cognition is impaired
For example, reduced processing in the ventral striatum is associated with negative symptoms
Cognitive explanations: Meta representation lead to hallucinations
Meta representation is the cognitive ability to reflect on thoughts and behaviour - allow us insight into our own intentions and goals
Cognitive explanations: Central control dysfunction leads to speech poverty
Frith et al - way to explain speech poverty - central control being the cognitive ability to suppress automatic responses while performing deliberate actions
People with schizophrenia experience derailment of thoughts because each word triggers automatic associations that they cannot suppress
EVALUATION: Three points regarding cognitive explanations
Only a proximal explanation
Research support
Psychological or biological?
EVALUATION: Only a proximal explanation
P - The fact that cognitive explanations are limited to explaining the closest causes of symptoms is one of their drawbacks.
E - Cognitive explanations of schizophrenia are proximal because they explain the current events leading to symptoms, as opposed to distal explanations, which centre on the underlying causes of the disorder, such as family dysfunction and genetics.
E - How genetic diversity or childhood trauma may contribute to issues with central control or meta representation is still unknown and poorly understood.
L - Thus, cognitive theories by themselves can only account for some aspects of schizophrenia.
EVALUATION: Research support
P - One strength of cognitive explanations is evidence for dysfunctional for processing.
E - Stirling et al. examined the results of thirty individuals with schizophrenia and thirty individuals without the disorder on a variety of cognitive activities. One of the tasks was the Stroop test, which requires patients to resist their natural tendency to read the words aloud by naming the font colours of the colour words.
E - The central control theory of Frith et al. predicted that patients with schizophrenia would take longer—on average, more than twice as long—to name the font colours.
L - This shows that individuals with schizophrenia may have poorer cognitive functioning.
EVALUATION: Psychological or biological?
The cognitive approach provides excellent explanation for the symptoms of schizophrenia, suggesting it is a psychological condition
However, abnormal cognition is probably partly genetic in origin and the result of brain development
Meaning that although it has psychological symptoms, schizophrenia is perhaps best seen as a biological condition
