Evaluation Schizophrenia: Interactionist Approach

Question 1

Support for vulnerability and triggers

Answer 1

• Tienari et al. (2004): investigated the impact of genetic vulnerability and a psychological trigger (family dysfunction) on schizophrenia.
• Followed 19,000 Finnish children whos biological mothers were diagnosed with schizophrenia (high risk genetically).
• Group was compared with control group adoptees who had no family history of schizophrenia (low risk genetically).
• Adoptive parents were investigated for parenting style.
• Found that high levels of criticism and hostility, and low levels of empathy, were strongly associated with the development of schizophrenia but only in group with high risk genetically.
• Supports the idea that a combination of genetic factors and family stress leads to increased risk of schizophrenia.

Question 2

eval Diathesis and Stress are Complex

Answer 2

• Original Diathesis-Stress model is oversimplistic as it portrayed diathesis are a single schizogene and portrayed stress as schizophrenogenic parenting.
• Diathesis comes in multiple combinations and stress comes in different forms.
• Houston et al. (2008) found childhood sexual abuse was a big factor in vulnerability to schizophrenia and cannabis use a major trigger.
• Shows multiple factors, both biological and psychological, affect diathesis and stress, in line with the modern model.

Question 3

Real-world application

Answer 3

• Practical application of acknowledging biological and psychological factors in schizophrenia has been the combination of drug treatment and psychological therapies.
• Studies show that combining treatments enhances their effectiveness.
• For example:
• Tarrier et al. (2004) randomly allocated 315 participants to (1) medication + CBT, (2) medication + counselling, or (3) control group (medication only).
• Participants in the two combination groups showed lower symptoms following the trial than the medication-only group.
• This means that there is a clear practical advantage to adopting an interactionist approach to schizophrenia when treating the disorder.

Question 4

Counterpoint

Answer 4

• Jarvis and Okami (2019) claim that saying a successful treatment justifies an explanation is a logical error called treatment causation fallacy.
• Just because alcohol reduces shyness it doesn’t mean shyness is caused by lack of alcohol.
• We cannot automatically assume that the success of combined therapies means interactionist explanations are correct.

Question 5

Urbanisation

Answer 5

• Schizophrenia is more commonly diagnosed in urban than rural areas.
• This statistic is sometimes used to justify the interactionist position, as it assumes that urban living is more stressful than rural and therefore city living acts as a trigger.
• However, it may simply be that schizophrenia is more likely to be diagnosed in cities, or that people with a diathesis for schizophrenia (e.g. teenagers abused as children) tend to migrate to cities.