Lesson 3 - Psychological Explanations for Schizophrenia Flashcards
What are the 2 psychological explanations for schizophrenia?
The family dysfunction explanation, and the cognitive explanations.
What is the family dysfunction explanation?
It is the idea that childhood and family experiences have an effect on the causation of schizophrenia.
What is an example of a family in dysfunction?
A family where there is abuse, a messy divorce, criminal activities, high poverty, or overall just extremely stressful circumstances.
What are the 3 ways in which the family dysfunction theory can be explained?
- The schizophrenogenic mother
- Double-bind theory
- Expressed emotion
Who made the schizophrenogenic mother theory?
Reichmann (1948)
What is the schizophrenogenic theory?
This essentially means a mother that acts in a specific type of way that causes schizophrenia.
The characteristics of this type of mother are cold, rejecting, controlling, and one that makes a family culture of secrecy and tension.
This leads to the child having delusions due to a lack of trust, and can ultimately cause SZ.
This is often in combination with a passive father that chooses not to get involved in child rearing.
Who made the double bind theory?
Bateson (1972)
What is the double bind theory?
This is when the parents of a child send mixed messages to the child. It is when a child is often trapped in situations where they fear doing the wrong thing, but received mixed messages about what the wrong thing is. Due to these mixed messages the child cannot seek clarification on the situation. Thus when the child gets it wrong, they are punished with the withdrawal of love, which can make the child feel like the world is a dangerous place, which results in the child becoming paranoid.
What is the disclaimer / issue with the double bind theory?
Bateson clarifies that this family communication style was simply a risk factor in the development of Schizophrenia, but not a sole cause.
What is the expressed emotion explanation of schizophrenia?
Expressed emotion is the level of emotion, specifically negative emotions, shown towards a schizophrenic by their carers. High levels of EE by the carers creates a serious source of stress. This can often result in a relapse of SZ,but it can also trigger the onset of SZ.
What 3 parts does the expressed emotion explanation contain?
- Verbal criticism of the patient, occasionally combined with violence.
- Hostility towards the patient, including anger and rejection.
- Emotional over-involvement in the life of the patient, including self sacrifice.
Evaluation of family dysfunction - Research Support (Tienari)
Tienari (1994) ran an adoption study to see whether adopted children with SZ biological parents were more likely to have SZ themselves, than children with non SZ parents. This difference only occurred when comparing families that were rated as disturbed or dysfunctional. This backs up the idea that family dysfunction is a trigger for SZ.
Evaluation of family dysfunction - Research Support (Read)
Read (2005) reviewed 46 studies of child abuse and SZ,and found that 69% of women in-patients with SZ had a history of physical abuse, sexual abuse or both. This statistic was 59% in men. This shows that family history is important when discussing the development of SZ.
Evaluation of family dysfunction - Insecure attachments
Adults who are shown to have insecure attachments to their primary carer are found to be more likely to develop SZ. This strengthens the family dysfunction explanation.
Evaluation of family dysfunction - Research support for double bind
Berger (1965) found that schizophrenics have a higher recall of double bind statements by their mothers, than non-schizophrenics. This however may not be reliable as their memories may be tampered by their SZ.
