Psychological Explanations

Question 1

Family Dysfunction
(Double Bind Theory)

Answer 1

Bateson et al (1956)
-SZ is caused by irresolveable communicational challenges in families
-The child lives in an environment where messages contradict each other
- happens repeatedly
- fear doing the wrong thing
- develop disorgansied thinking and paranoid delusions

Feelings of affection + hostility= confustion and internal conflict about reality- leads to withdrawal, low self-esteem

Cannot explain SZ alone- RISK FACTOR not a direct cause

Question 2

Familty Dysfuntion
(Schizophrenagenic Mother)

Answer 2

Fromm-Reichm (1948)
- Schizophrenagentic= ‘Schizophrenia-causing’
- cold, rejecting, controlling
- tends to create a family enviornment characterised by secrecy and tension
- Therefore leads to lack of trust- paranoid delusions and eventually SZ

-These parents behave differently to the parents of other kinds of paitents (e.g depressive), particularly in the presence of their disturbed offpsring

Question 3

Family Dysfunction
(Expressed Emotion)

Answer 3

-qualitative measure of emotion, particularly negative emotion, expressed towards a person with SZ
-negative emotional environment- relapse

-verbal criticism of paitent
-hostitlity towards a paitent, including anger and rejection
-emotional over-involvement in the life of a paitent

-Increased levels of EE= serious source of stress

Diathesis Stress= stress= trigger onset of SZ in someone who is already vulnerable

Question 4

A03-Psychological Explanations
(Support for family dysfunction as a risk factor)

Answer 4

Read et al (2005)- reviewed 46 child abuse studies and schizophrenia
-69% of adult women in-paitents with SZ= history of physical/sexual abuse in childhood
-59% of men

-adults with insecure attachment- increase risk of SZ

Weakness
- info about childhood experiences= gathered after development of symptoms
- SZ may have distorted paitents recall of childhood experiences
- decreases validity

Question 5

AO3- Psychological Explanations
(Socially Sensitive)

Answer 5

-Led to parent- blaming

-Schizophrenagenic mother and double bind= almost no evidence to support
-only based on clinical obersvations

Socially Sensitive Research
-undergo further trauma by receiving blame for condition

Question 6

Metarepresentation

Answer 6

-the cognitive ability to differentiate between our own actions and the actions of others, allowing us insight into the intentions and emotions of others, as well as maintaining a realistic/functional view of our own goals and intentions

Dysfunctions in metarepresentation
- auditory hallucinations, thought insertion
- inability to differentiate between our own thoughts and that of others
- may lead to paranoid delusions due to the contents of inserting others’ thoughts into the mind of the paitent

Question 7

Central Control

Answer 7

-the cognitive ability to carry out a deliberate action while surpressing an automatic response
-often measured using the Stroop Test

• Involves identifying the colour of each work, where there is often a discrepancy
• Therefore, the automatic response of reading the word must be surpressed, to allow for indentifcation of the font colour

People with SZ often have dysfunctional central control abilities, and so often suffer from derailment because they cannot suppress the automatic associations that each new word in a sentence brings