Cognitive explanation of schizophrenia Flashcards
the cognitive explanations of schizophrenia states
-the cognitive explanations of schizophrenia states that the symptoms of schizophrenia are caused by dysfunctional mental processes such as:
-dysfunctional attention
-dysfunctional reasoning
2 types of dysfunctional reasoning:
jumping to conclusions bias-tendency to jump to conclusions based on very little evidence
persecution bias-tendency to believe that you are being singled out and unfairly treated
how dysfunctional thought processes cause delusions:
-dysfunctional reasoning causes patients to over focus on small irrelevant details of real life events and coincidences
-the patient then tries to explain why these coincidences keep happening but their dysfunctional reasoning makes explanations irrational, therefore causing a delusional belief
how dysfunctional thought processes cause hallucinations:
-due to dysfunctional attention, people over focus on things they imagine
-over focusing on imagined events causes imagined events to feel real
-as a result, people with schizophrenia struggle to tell the difference between things they imagine and things that have actually happened
-therefore causing hallucinations
how dysfunctional mental processes lead to negative symptoms of schizophrenia:
1) the first step is is that patients start to become overwhelmed by their abnormal experiences(hallucinations, delusions)
2) then, the patient wants to avoid their abnormal experiences
3) so therefore, patients isolate themselves from the outside world
-this therefore causes them to experience avolition and speech poverty
evidence of cognitive explanation:
O’Carols two studies:
-reviewed studies on people with schizophrenia
-found that 75% of patients displayed dysfunctional mental processes
2nd study:
-reviewed studies that investigated people at risk of schizophrenia
-he found that that people who went onto have schizophrenia, already had dysfunctional mental processes before they started any symptoms
-this therefore suggests that dysfunctional mental processes may cause the symptoms of schizophrenia
limitation of cognitive explanation:
one limitation of the cognitive explanation for schizophrenia is that it doesn’t account for the role of biological factors such as the role of genetics or the role of antipsychotics medication as a treatment for schizophrenia
Cognitive treatments: cognitive behavioural therapy(CBT)
-aim of CBT is to challenge irrational beliefs and thought processes
-it does this by using four steps which are:
1)explanation- the patient explains their symptoms
2)normalisation- the doctor explains that the patients feelings are normal
3)challenging- the doctor challenges patients beliefs and experiences
4)alternative explanations– the patient is asked to develop alternative explanations for beliefs and experiences
therefore, using this method CBT helps to correct the biases in reasoning that the patient displays such as jumping to conclusions bias and persecution bias
-this therefore helps to reduce symptoms of schizophrenia such as delusions
Advantage/study support for CBT
NICE:
-conducted a laboratory experiment comparing CBT combined with medical drugs, to medical drugs alone
-found that treatments with CBT were found to be more effective at reducing symptoms of schizophrenia
-also, found that treatments with CBT were found to reduce the likelihood of a patient relapsing and having to go back into hospital
limitations of CBT
-not all studies used random allocation:
many studies didn’t use random allocation or blinding which may have lead to cofounding variables and a lack of objectivity from the researchers
-therefore, the effectiveness of CBT may have been over exaggerated
in fact in Wykes et al reviewed that studies with a better experimental design found that CBT wasn’t particularly effective at treating schizophrenia
-another limitation of CBT is that it is expensive as CBT requires lots of one on one sessions with a therapist
-this is a problem because it limits the availability of the treatment as waiting lists will have to be implemented
