Cognitive Explanations Of Cuh

Question 1

What is the cognitive explanation of SZ based off of

Answer 1

Dysfunctional thought processing

Question 2

What did frith et al identify

Answer 2

Two kinds of dysfunctional thought processing:

Metarepresentation

Central control

Question 3

What is metarepresentarion and what would dysfunction of metarepresentarion lead to

Answer 3

The cognitive ability to reflect on thoughts and behaviour which enables us an insight into our own intentions and goals as well as allowing us to interpret the actions of others.

Thus dysfunction in metarepresentarion would disrupt this ability to recognise our own actions and thoughts as being our own rather than someone else. This could explain auditory hallucinations and delusions

Question 4

What is central control

Answer 4

Central control – this is the cognitive ability to suppress automatic responses while we perform other actions instead. Speech poverty and thought disorder could result from the inability to ignore your own automatic thoughts as well as what other could be saying to you. Sufferers with SZ tend to experience derailment of their thoughts and what they say because there is too much going on in their thought processes thus they lose control of their own thoughts.

Question 5

Strengths cognitive explanations

Answer 5

There is strong evidence for dysfunctional thought processing in SZ. In one study Stirling et al (2006) compared 30 patients with a diagnosis of SZ with 18 non-patient controls on a range of cognitive tasks such as the stroop effect (this is when the colour word is written in a different colour and you have to actually say the colour of the word rather than just reading the word). In his study Stirling found that patients with SZ took twice as long to say the colour of the word than controls – this study shows dysfunctional thought processing in schizophrenics since they were struggling with separating the colour word from the actual colour that it was (e.g. saying the colour blue but the actual colour word written is red) because the Schizophrenics were not able to separate the actual colour from the written word.

Another strength of cognitive explanations of schizophrenia is the success of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) used alongside drugs to treat schizophrenia. As schizophrenia is a thought disorder, clearly drugs cannot completely treat the disorder thus cognitive behavioural therapy will aim to question and challenge the hallucinations and delusions – as well as using behavioural techniques (such as positive reinforcement). CBT has been proven to be effective thus further supporting the cognitive explanations of SZ.

Question 6

Weaknesses cognitive

Answer 6

Although there is a wealth of evidence to support the idea that schizophrenics have dysfunctional thought processing, it is difficult to establish whether this is a cause or consequence of SZ for example did the dysfunctional thought processing begin and then then person had symptoms of SZ or is the dysfunctional thought processing a consequence of SZ?

The cognitive explanation in explaining SZ is problematic in that it fails to take into account biological factors and does not acknowledge the fact that dysfunctional thought processing could also be due to abnormal dopamine levels in the brain. This explanation is therefore reductionist because it is simplifying SZ to very basic elements e.g. dysfunctional thoughts rather than considering other factors such as genes, neurotransmitters and stress which have all been shown to contribute to schizophrenia.