Psychological explanation for schizophrenia AO3 Flashcards
Research support for family dysfunction
- indications of family dysfunction include insecure attachment and childhood trauma
John Read et al:
- Adults with schizophrenia are disproportionately likely to have insecure attachment, particularly type C or D
- 69% of women and 59% of men with schizophrenia have history pf physical and/or sexual abuse
Morkved et al:
- Adults with schizophrenia reported at least one childhood trauma, mostly abuse
Explanations of family dysfunction lack support
- Almost no evidence to support the importance of traditional family based theories such as the schizophrenogenic mother and the double-bind
- Both theories based on clinical observations of people with schizophrenia and informal assessment of their mothers, not systematic evidence
- Means family functions have not been able to account for link between childhood trauma and schizophrenia
What does John Read et al say about family dysfunction?
- Adults with schizophrenia are disproportionately likely to have insecure attachment, particularly type C or D
- 69% of women and 59% of men with schizophrenia have history pf physical and/or sexual abuse
John Read et al says that adults with schizophrenia are more likely to have which attachment type?
- Insecure attachment, particularly type C or D
John Read et al found that what percentage of men and women had a history of physical and/or sexual abuse?
- 69% of women and 59% of men
What does Morkved et al say about family dysfunction?
- Adults with schizophrenia reported at least one childhood trauma, mostly abuse
There is almost no evidence to support which theories of schizophrenia
- Almost no evidence to support the importance of traditional family based theories such as the schizophrenogenic mother and the double-bind
Theories like the schizophrenogenic mother and the double-bind theory are based on what observations?
- Both theories based on clinical observations of people with schizophrenia and informal assessment of their mothers, not systematic evidence
Why haven’t family functions been able to account for the link between childhood trauma and schizophrenia?
- Almost no evidence to support the importance of traditional family based theories such as the schizophrenogenic mother and the double-bind
- Both theories based on clinical observations of people with schizophrenia and informal assessment of their mothers, not systematic evidence
Parent blaming
- Research linking family dysfunction to schizophrenia is highly socially sensitive
- Can lead to parent blaming, particularly of mothers
- To be blamed adds insult to injury for parents having to watch child experience schizophrenia and take responsibility for care
What are the three evaluation points for the family dysfunction explanation of schizophrenia?
- Research support
- Explanation lacks support
- Parent blaming
What are the three evaluation points for the cognitive explanation of schizophrenia?
- Research support
- A proximal explanation
- Psychological or biological
Research support for cognitive explanations of schizophrenia
- John Sterling et al
- compared performance on range of cognitive tasks of 30 people with schizophrenia
- Control group = 30 people without schizophrenia
- Task included stroop test, name font-colours of colour-words so have to suppress tendency to read words aloud
- As predicted by Frith et al’s central control theory, people with schizophrenia took longer (over twice as long on average) to name font-colours
- means cognitive processing of people with schizophrenia is impaired
Who did John Sterling et al compare the performances of?
- John Sterling et al
- compared performance on range of cognitive tasks of 30 people with schizophrenia
- Control group = 30 people without schizophrenia
What tasks did John Sterling task his participants to do?
- Task included stroop test, name font-colours of colour-words so have to suppress tendency to read words aloud
