Psychological Explanation Of Schizophrenia Flashcards
How does the Scizophrenogenic mother relate to family dysfunction as an explanation for Sz?
- Reichmann proposed a psychodynamic explanation based on accounts of patients childhood.
- ‘Schizophrenogenic’ = ‘schizophrenia causing’
- cold, rejecting and controlling, creates a family climate characterised by tension and secrecy
- leads to distrust and paranoid delusions
How does double-bind theory relate to family dysfunction as an explanation for SZ?
- Bateson emphasised the role of family communication. Child fears doing wrong thing, but receive mixed messages about what that is, unable to comment on unfairness or seek clarification
- When they get it ‘wrong’ (often) child is punished by withdrawal of love - see the world as confusing and dangerous reflected in paranoid delusions
- Bateson was clear this is merely a risk factor
How is Expressed emotion related to family dysfunction as a psychological explanation for Schizophrenia?
EE is the level of emotion expressed towards patients by carers (often family members), there are 3 example of this:
- Verbal criticism (can be accompanied by violence)
- Hostility towards person
- Emotional over-involvement in the life of patient (needless self-sacrifice)
Serious source of stress for them, explanation for relapse in those with Sz may trigger onset of Sz is a person who is already vulnerable
What is dysfunctional thinking as a cognitive explanation of Sz?
- Sz characterised by disruption to normal thought processing
- reduces though processing in the ventral striatum (associated w negative symptoms), reduces processing in temporal and cingulate gyri (associated w hallucinations)
What is Metarepresentation dysfunction as a cognitive explanation of Sz?
- Frith et al identified 2 kinds of dysfunctional thought processing.
Metarepresentation is the ability to reflect on thoughts and behaviours, allows insight into intentions and goals and to interpret the actions of others - dysfunction of this would disrupt ability to recognise own actions and thoughts as being carried out by ourselves rather than someone else
- explain hallucinations of hearing voices and delusions like though insertion
What is Central control dysfunction?
- Frith identified 2 kinds of dysfunctional thought processing (this and metarepresentation)
- speech poverty and though disorder results from inability to suppress automatic thoughts and speech triggered by other thoughts
- each word triggers associations and the person cannot suppress automatic responses to these
Research support as a strength of family dysfunction as a treatment for Sz?
- family dysfunction includes insecure attachment and exposure to childhood trauma including abuse - Read et al adults with Sz are disproportionally likely to have insecure attachment - 69% of women and 59% of men have a history of physical/sexual abuse
How is their poor evidence to support family dysfunction as an explanation for Sz?
- none to support the importance of traditional family based theories such as schizophrenogenic mother and double bind, based on clinical observation and informal assessments of mother personality
Research support for cog native explanation?
- Stirling performance on cognitive task in 30 people with Sz and a control group of 30 without Sz, stroop task pps have to suppress tendency to read words aloud, people with Sz took twice as long
How are the cognitive explanations only proximal?
- They only explain what is happening right now to produce symptoms - as distinct from distal explanations which focus on what initially caused the condition, e.g genetic and family dysfunction explanation. What is unclear is how genetic variation or childhood trauma might lead to problems with Metarepresentation or control
