schizophrenia: psychological explanations Flashcards
(14 cards)
state the 3 family dysfunction explanations
- Double bind
- Schizophrenogenic mother
- Expressed emotion
stae the 2 cognitive explanations
- Meta representations
- Central control
explain the schizophrenogenic mother explanation
the mother is:
* cold
* rejecting
* controlling
* creates tension and secrecy in the family
This leads to distrust that later develops into paranoid delusions and ultimately schizophrenia.
explain double bind theory > Bateson et al
Bateson et al emphasised the role of communication style within a family.
* Children who frequently receive contradictory messages from their parents are more likely to develop schizophrenia.
* For example parents who say they care whilst appearing critical or who express love whilst appearing angry
* The child finds themselves trapped in situations where they fear doing the wrong thing but receive mixed messages about what this is and feels unable to comment on the unfairness of this situation or seek clarification.
* When they ‘get it wrong’ the child is punished by withdrawal of love. This leaves the child with an understanding of the world as confusing and dangerous and leads to disorganised thinking and paranoid delusions.
explain expressed emotion
- Expressed emotion is the level of negative emotions, expressed towards a patient by their carers.
- Expressed emotion contains several elements:
1. Verbal criticism of the patient, occasionally accompanied violence.
2. Hostility towards the patient, including anger and rejection
3. Emotional over-involvement in the life of the patient, including needless self-sacrifice. - This is primarily an explanation for relapse in patients with schizophrenia.
how does family dysfunction cause SZ according to the diathesis stress model
However, it has also been suggested that it may be a source of stress that can trigger the onset of schizophrenia in a person who is already vulnerable, for example due to their genetic make up
what does the cognitive explanation focus on
- The cognitive explanation focuses on the role of mental processes.
- Schizophrenia is characterised by disruption to normal thought processing. We can see this in many of the symptoms.
who came up with the cognitive explanations
Frith et al
explain metarepresentation
- This is the cognitive ability to reflect on thoughts and behaviour. This allows us insight into our own
intentions and goals. - Dysfunction in metapresentation would disrupt our ability to recognise our own actions and thoughts as being carried out by ourselves rather than someone else.
- This would explain hallucinations of voices and delusions like thought insertion.
explain central control
- This is the cognitive ability to suppress automatic
responses while we perform deliberate actions. - This is faulty in patients with schizophrenia
- Disorganised speech and thought disorder could result from the inability to suppress automatic thoughts and speech triggered by other thoughts.
AO3: socially sensitive
This family dysfunction theory may be deemed socially sensitive.
This theory suggests mothers who are cold, rejecting and controlling can cause distrust in the child that later
develops into paranoid delusions and ultimately schizophrenia. This argues that the onset of SZ is caused by a schizophrenogenic mother.
WEAKNESS because it results in parent blaming. It causes the mother, who has already suffered at seeing their children’s decent into schizophrenia and who are likely to bear lifelong responsibility for their care, to undergo further trauma by receiving blame for the condition > Therefore there is very little benefit to support the importance of the schizophrenogenic mother (Parker, 1982)
AO3: research to support family dysfunction
There is research linking family dysfunction and schizophrenia
Read et al reviewed 46 studies of child abuse and schizophrenia and concluded that 69% of adult women who had schizophrenia had a history of physical abuse, sexual abuse or both in childhood. For men the figure was 59%.
In addition, Berry et al found adults with insecure attachments to their primary carer are also more likely to have schizophrenia.
STRENGTH as this suggests family dysfunction makes people more vulnerable to schizophrenia.
However, there are issues concerning the validity of participants responses. Information about childhood experiences was gathered after the development of symptoms and the schizophrenia may have distorted patients recall of childhood experiences. So their recall may be inaccurate.
AO3: research to support cognitive explanation
One strength of the cognitive explanations is evidence for dysfunctional thought processing.
Stirling et al compared performance on a cognitive Stroop tasks in 30 people with SZ and a control group of 30 people without schizophrenia.
This is where participants have the name the font-colour of colour-words. So have to supress the tendency to read the words aloud.
Patients with schizophrenia took over twice as long to name the font colour
STRENGTH as this is because patients cannot supress automatic responses suggesting their central control is dysfunctional
AO3: real life application of psychological explanation
The psychological explanation, is supported by its treatment of schizophrenia. Such as CBT, family therapy and token economy.
CBT focuses on challenging the irrational thoughts such as their delusions or their hallucinations. It can help patients make ense of their symptoms offering psychological explanation which will in turn reduce anxiety. Although they may not cure, they g a long way in improving the quality of life for SZ patients such as easing the stress of living with schizophrenia for the patient and their family.
STRENGTH as this supports the psychological explanation however, conventionally this therapy is used alongside
biological treatment.
