psychological explanations for schizophrenia Flashcards
(16 cards)
2 psychological explanations for Sz
- family dysfunction
- cognitive explanations
3 types of family dysfunction
- schiophregenic mother
- double-blind theory
- expressed emotion
(family dysfunction) who proposed the schizophrenogenic mother
fromm-reichmann (1948)
(family dysfunction) describe the schizophrenogenic mother
- psychodynamic explanation for Sz
- based on accounts from patients childhoods
- many spoke about certain type of parent (schizophrenogenic mother)
- mother is cold, rejecting & controlling
- creates family climate of tension & secrecy
- leads to distrust which later develops into paranoid delusions
(family dysfunction) who proposed the double-blind theory
bateson et al. (1972)
(family dysfunction) describe the double-blind theory
- emphasised role of commmunication style
- developing child feels trapped in situations when they fear doing the wrong thing but receive mixed messages about what this is & feel unable to comment on unfairness/seek clarification
- when they ‘get it wrong’ they’re punished by withdrawal of love
- develop belief that world is confusing & dangerous
- reflected in symptoms (eg. disorganised thinking, paranoid delusions)
(family dysfunction) describe expressed emotion
- level of emotion (particularly negative) expressed towards individual with Sz by carers
- several elements:
- verbal criticism (occasionally accompanied by voilence)
- hostility towards them (includes anger & rejection)
- emotional overinvolvement in their life (including needless self-sacrifice) - serious source of stress
- primarily an explanation for relapse
- the stress may trigger onset of Sz in vulnerable individual (diathesis-stress model)
types of cognitive explanations
- dysfunctional thinking
- metarepresentation dysfunction
- central control dysfunction
(cognitive explanations) who proposed metarepresentation dysfunction & central control dysfunction
frith et al. (1992)
(cognitive explanations) describe dysfunctional thinking
- Sz characterised by disruption to normal thought processing
- reduced thought processing in ventral striatum associated with negative symptoms
- reduced processing of information in temporal & cingulate gyri associated with hallucinations (simon et al. 2015)
- lower-than-usual level of information processing suggets cognition is likely to be impaired
(cognitive explanations) describe metarepresentation dysfunction
- metarepresentation = cognitive ability to reflect on thoughts/behaviour, allowing us insight into own intentions/goals & interpret actions of others
- dysfunction disrupts our ability to recognise our own actions/thoughts as being carried out by ourselves
- may explain hallucinations of hearing voices & delusions (eg. thought insertion)
(cognitive explanations) describe central control dysfunction
- issues with cognitive ability to suppress automatic responses while we perform deliberate actions
- speech poverty & thought disorder may result from inability to suppress automatic thoughts & speech triggered by other thoughts
family dysfunction AO3 +) research evidence linking family dysfunction with schizophrenia
E:
- indicators of family dysfunction include insecure attachment & exposure to childhood trauma
- read et al. (2005) conducted review & found adults with Sz are disproportionately likely to have insecure attachment (especially type C/D)
- read et al. also reported 69% women & 59% men with Sz have history of physical/sexual abuse
T: strongly suggests family dysfunction makes people more vulnerable to Sz
family dysfunction AO3 -) family explanations have poor evidence base
E:
- almost no evidence supporting importance of traditional family-based theories (eg. schizophrenogenic mother, double-blind theory)
- both theories based on clinical observation of people with Sz & informal assessment of mothers’ personalities (not systematic evidence)
T: means family explanations haven’t been able to account for link between childhood trauma & Sz
cogntive explanations AO3 +) evidence for dysfunctional thought processing
E:
- stirling et al. (2006) compared performance on many cogntiive tasks in 30 people with Sz & 30 people without (control group)
- tasks eg. stroop task (say colour word is written in)
- as predicted by frith et al.’s central control theory, people with Sz took longer (over 2x)
T: means cognitive processes of people with Sz are impaired
cogntive explanations AO3 -) only explain proximal origins of symptoms
E:
- proximal explanations as explain what’s happening now to produce symptoms
- distal explanations focus on what initially caused condition (eg. genetic & family dysfunction)
T: means cognitive theories only provide partial explanations for Sz on their own
