SZ - Interactionist Essay Plan Flashcards
(10 cards)
What is the interactionist approach to explaining schizophrenia?
It suggests that schizophrenia develops due to the combined effects of biological and psychological/social factors.
What is the diathesis-stress model of schizophrenia?
The diathesis-stress model proposes that a person has a predisposed biological vulnerability, which is triggered by an environmental stressor.
What counts as a diathesis in schizophrenia today?
Diathesis is now seen as polygenic, involving many genes, and early trauma can also be a diathesis.
What are examples of stressors in schizophrenia?
Stressors include childhood trauma, dysfunctional families, and drug abuse, which increase risk by triggering the underlying vulnerability.
What is the interactionist approach to treatment of schizophrenia?
It supports combined treatments: using biological therapies like antipsychotic medication alongside CBT.
What research supports the interactionist model?
Gottesman (1991) showed higher concordance for schizophrenia in MZ twins (48%) vs DZ twins (17%).
This suggests schizophrenia results from both biological and environmental influences.
How does Tienari et al. (2004) support the interactionist approach?
Adoption study showed children with a genetic risk only developed schizophrenia when raised in dysfunctional families.
This confirms that genetic risk alone is not sufficient — a psychological trigger is needed.
How does treatment evidence from Tarrier (1998) support the model?
Patients receiving combined treatment had fewer symptoms and hospital days.
This shows addressing both biological and psychological factors improves outcomes.
What is a conceptual strength of the interactionist approach?
It is a holistic explanation that considers the full complexity of schizophrenia.
Its integration of the nature-nurture debate gives it high theoretical credibility.
What is a limitation of the interactionist model’s explanatory power?
It is still unclear how psychological triggers biologically activate schizophrenia.
This reduces the confidence in the interactionist model as a complete explanation.
