psychological explanation for schizophrenia

Question 1

what is one psychological explanation for schizophrenia

Answer 1

family dsyfunction

Question 2

define family dysfunction

Answer 2

process within a family such as poor family communication. cold parenting and high levels of expressed emotions.

Question 3

how dose family dysfunction link to schizophrenia

Answer 3

there is a link between living in a dysfunctional family and schizophrenia in childhood/ adulthood.

Question 4

who proposed The schizophrenogenic mother

Answer 4

Fromm-Reichmann’s (1948) - proposed a psychodynamic explanation for schizophrenia.

Question 5

what was fromm-reichmanns theory based off of

Answer 5

accounts from her patients’ early experiences of ‘schizophrenogenic mothers’ (mothers who cause schizophrenia).

Question 6

what traits dose the schizophrenogenic mother have

Answer 6

cold, rejecting and controlling, and create a family climate of tension and secrecy.

Question 7

what dose the schizophrenic mother lead to

Answer 7

leads to distrust and paranoid delusions and schizophrenia.

Question 8

what is the double blind theory

Answer 8

agrees that family climate is important but emphasises the role of communication.

Question 9

who theories the double blind theory

Answer 9

Bateson et al. (1972)

Question 10

example of double blind theory

Answer 10

child may be regularly trapped in situations where they fear doing the wrong thing, but receive conflicting messages about what counts as wrong.

cannot express their feelings about the unfairness of the situation.

When they ‘get it wrong: child is punished by withdrawal of love leads to disorganised thinking and delusions.

Question 11

what is the Expressed emotion and schizophrenia.

Answer 11

is the level of emotion expressed towards the schizophrenic patient.

Question 12

what dose expressed emotions include

VHE

Answer 12

Verbal criticism of the patient.

Hostility towards them.

Emotional over-involvement in their life.

High levels of EE cause stress in the patient: primarily an explanation for relapse in people with schizophrenia.

Question 13

what dose cognitive explanation focus on

Answer 13

focuses on the role of mental processes.

Question 14

what is dysfunctional thought processing

Answer 14

information processing that dose not represent reality accurately and produces undesirable consequences

Lower levels of information processing in some areas of the brain suggest that cognition is impaired.

Question 15

example of dysfunction thinking in relation schizophrenia

Answer 15

reduced processing in the ventral striatum is associated with negative symptoms.

Question 16

what did Frith et al identify

Answer 16

2 types of dysfunctional thought processing.

metarepresentation and central control dysfunction.

Question 17

what is metarepresentation

Answer 17

cognitive ability to reflect on thoughts and behaviour.

dysfunction in the metarepresentation would
disrupts our ability to recognise our thoughts as our own.

lead to the sensation of hearing voices (hallucination) and having thoughts placed in the mind by others (delusions).

Question 18

what is central control dysfunction

Answer 18

Identified issues with cognitive abilities to cypress automatic responses while we perform deliberate actions.

speech poverty could result inability to suppress automatic thoughts and speech.

For example: schizophrenics can experience derailment of thoughts and spoken sentences: each word triggers automatic associations that they cannot suppress.

Question 19

One strength of family dysfunction explanations

Answer 19

there is evidence linking family dysfunction to schizophrenia. Read et al. (2005)

adults with schizophrenia were disproportionately likely to have insecure attachment, particularly Type C or D.

Question 20

One limitation of family explanations

Answer 20

poor evidence base for any of the explanations.

there is evidence supporting childhood family-based stress associated with adult schizophrenia,

no evidence to support the importance of traditional family-based theories such as the schizophrenogenic mother and double bind.

Question 21

One strength of cognitive explanations

Answer 21

evidence for dysfunctional thought processing. Stirling et al. (2006)

compared performance on a range of cognitive tasks, including the Stroop task, in people with and without schizophrenia.