EXPLANATION 2: PSYCHODYNAMIC APPROACH/SCHIZOPHRENOGENIC MOTHER - DESCRIPTION AO1

Question 1

What is Fixation?

Answer 1

1. During the oral stage of psychosexual development, the libido receives satisfaction from stimulation of the lips and mouth.
2. Most of the time the libido’s urges are satisfied by feeding from the mother’s breast.
3. However if an infant receives too much or too little oral stimulation during this phase, they may become fixated.

Question 2

What does Freud propose?

Answer 2

1. Freud proposed that individuals with schizophrenia become fixated during the first one to two months of the oral stage of development.
2. However, if, as an adult, an individual experiences excessive amounts of stress, the individual may indeed regress back to the oral stage. Regression is an ego defence mechanism which causes the ego to retreat back to an earlier stage (specifically the oral stage for schizophrenia). This may just be temporary or may continue over the long term.

Question 3

How can a person regressing back to the oral stage cause symptoms of Schizophrenia?

Answer 3

1. During the oral stage the ego is not well developed.
2. The role of the ego is to control the id’s
   impulses and to try to balance the demands of the id with the
   moral limitations imposed by the superego.
3. However if an individual regresses back to a point where the ego effectively doesn’t exist, there is nothing stopping the id from operating completely unimpeded.

Question 4

What type of symptoms can this cause?

Answer 4

1. Symptoms of schizophrenia, such as hallucinations and delusions, then supposedly represent the unchecked activities of the id.
2. The person loses touch with reality, being unable to distinguish between reality and their desires and fantasies.
3. This state is little better than that of a new-born infant, and as such the individual with schizophrenia is typified by the primary narcissism (a supposedly selfish instinct that guides our survival) seen in all new-borns.

Question 5

Schizophrenogenic Mother:

Answer 5

1. Psychodynamic theorists consider the mother-child relationship to be one of the crucial factors in the development of schizophrenia.
2. This concept proposes that the mothers of individuals who develop schizophrenia are overprotective and controlling but at the same time rejecting and distant.
3. The mother’s overprotection stifles the child’s emotional development, while her emotional distance deprives the child of personal security, thereby leaving an individual who is very vulnerable when faced with stress.