psychological explanations

Question 1

strength into limitation (Is the family dysfunction explanation effective?) - CW

Answer 1

P:There is evidence to suggest that difficult family relationships in childhood are associated with increased risk of schizophrenia in adulthood.
E: Read et al reviewed 46 studies of child abuse and schizophrenia and concluded that 69% of adult woman in-patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia had a history of physical abuse, sexual abuse, or both in childhood. For men the figure was 59%.
E: This shows that unhealthy relationships and cold parenting can cause schizophrenia supporting the involvement of FD in SCH
C: However, this information about childhood experiences was gathered after the development of schizophrenia symptom which means we cant compare using a baseline decreasing the internal validity and methodology used.
E: This is a problem because the schizophrenia may have distorted their recall of childhood experiences

Question 2

strength (evidence to support CE) DW

Answer 2

P: There is strong support for the idea that information is processed differently in the mind of schizophrenia sufferers compared to controls
E: Stirling et al compared 30 patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia with 18 non-patient controls on a range of cognitive tasks including the Stroop task where participants have to name the ink colours of coloured words, supressing the impulse to read the words.
E: Patients took twice as long to name the ink colours as the controls showing that they experienced more central control dysfunction
I: This suggests that since sch sufferers cant supress their automatic processing it can affect their social life and they could get into trouble by not saying the right thing increasing the ecological validity of the explanation

Question 3

limitation (patient blaming) DW

Answer 3

P: The CE has negative implications as it blames the patient for their abnormal mental processing
E: The CE suggests that faulty thinking is responsible for the symptoms of schizophrenia and therefore one way to treat the illness would be to change in the individual’s cognitions. This could lead individual feeling like they are to blame for the development of schizophrenia
E: This is obviously sensitive towards the patient and can be quite offensive. It gives too much ownership to the individual. Blaming them may affect their mental health.
I: Therefore, this could imply that patients are more inclined to get treated for sch as they think its their fault

Question 4

Limitation (parent blaming) DW

Answer 4

P: Family dysfunction explanations for schizophrenia have led historically to parent blaming
E: Parents, who have already suffered seeing their child develop schizophrenia and who are likely to bear lifelong responsibility for their care, underwent further trauma by receiving the blame for the condition.
E: This is sensitive to parents as well as patients because how will they react if they found out their parents are to blame for their illness? (Guilt?)

Question 5

limitation ( cognitive approach is descriptive) DW

Answer 5

P: cognitive explanations of schizophrenia do not explain how faulty cognition occurred
E:The cognitive explanation are purely descriptive; they explain the links between the symptoms of schiz and the faulty thinking that occurs, but they do not explain what causes the faulty thinking.
E: This questions the validity of cognitive explanations for the original cause of schizophrenia is questionable because we are not accurately measuring what we set out to measure if we cannot see the processes.
I: This questions the use of CBT. Research should be done to find out the cause. Also patients are going to feel let down by the NHS

Question 6

limitation (psych explanation is reductionist) DW

Answer 6

P: Psychological explanation for schiz does not consider the role of biology in the development of schiz
E:They are therefore reductionist as they are only trying to focus on psychological aspects of human experience and trying to explain the disorder through that.
E: This ignores the evidence provided by biological explanations for the role of genes and dopamine in the illness.
I: This means that schizophrenia should be explained using the diathesis-stress model as the diathesis could be both biological and psychological in nature