L5 Psychological Explanations for SZ Flashcards
1
Q
What are the two main psychological explanations for SZ?
A
Family dysfunction and Cognitive Explanations
2
Q
What are the 3 family dysfunction explanations?
A
The Schizophrenogenic Mother
Double Bind Theory
Expressed Emotions
3
Q
The Schizophrenogenic Mother
A
- This type of mother is cold, rejecting and controlling, creating a family climate of secrecy and tension
- Leads to the child having a lack of trust in relationships that later develop into paranoid delusions, ultimately developing into SZ
- The Father is often passive and does not get involved in the upbringing
4
Q
Double Bind Theory
A
- Bateson et al suggested that children who received contradictory messages from parents, e.g the mum says they love them and looks away in disgust
- The child finds themselves trapped in situations which they fear doing the wrong thing but receive mixed messages about what the right thing is
- The child sees the world as a dangerous, uncertain place - leading to paranoid delusions and SZ
5
Q
Expressed Emotion
A
- The level of negative emotion expressed towards a patient by their parents
- This can be verbal criticism, shown with violence
- Hostility towards the patients, including anger and rejection
- Emotional over-involvement, showing self-sacrifice for the patients
6
Q
Strengths of Family Dysfunction? (2)
A
Finnish Adoptees
Double Bind research
7
Q
Finnish Adoptees (+) FD
A
- Research support, found Finnish adoptees who were biologically inclined to have SZ are more likely to get it
- However this was only the case when their adopted parents relationships was dysfunctional, showing environmental conditions were just as important as biological ones
8
Q
Double Bind research (+) FD
A
- SZ patients recalled more double-blind statements from their parents than non-SZ patients
- However this has validity issues, as their memory may be impaired due to the delusions and hallucinations experiences during SZ, making it harder to verify if their recall is accurate
9
Q
Weaknesses of Family Dysfunction? (2)
A
Parent Blaming
Does not account for biology
10
Q
Parent Blaming (-) FD
A
- The dysfunctional family explanations for SZ can be unethical
- They put pressure on parents and blame them entirely for their child’s SZ
- This can lead to further trauma for the parents and cause harm
11
Q
Does not account for biology (-) FD
A
- Does not consider that the abnormal thinking and dysfunctional thought processes are due to abnormal levels of dopamine
- Does not consider the dopamine hypothesis enough
12
Q
What is the Cognitive Explanation for SZ?
A
- Focus on the role of mental thought processes
- SZ is associated with several types of dysfunctional thought processing and this is used to explain SZ
13
Q
What are the two Cognitive Explanations presented by Frith et al?
A
Metarepresentation
Central Control
14
Q
What is Metarepresentation?
A
- The cognitive ability to reflect on thoughts and behaviour which enables us an insight into our own intentions and goals, also allows us to interpret actions of others
- Dysfunction in this would disrupt the ability to know your own actions and thoughts as your own and not someone else’s
- This could explain symptoms such as auditory hallucinations and delusions where an SZ patient believes someone is putting thoughts into their head
15
Q
What is Central Control?
A
- Cognitive ability to suppress automatic responses while we perform other actions that are more necessary
- Speech poverty and thought disorder could arise from the inability to ignore your own automatic thoughts
- Derailment can occur where the sufferer is unable to think properly due to their being too much going on in their thought processes
