psychological explanations Flashcards
family dysfunction
schizophrenic mother
double-blind theory
expressed emotion
schizophrenic mother
the mother is the cause of the child’s schizophrenia
Fromm-Reichmann (1948)
- psychodynamic explanation explains that a mother who is cold, rejecting and controlling can cause schizophrenia in her child
- creates an environment of tension and secrecy
- leads to the child’s distrust and later develops paranoid delusions
double-blind theory
children who receive contradictory messages from their parents are more likely to develop schizophrenia
they fear doing the wrong thing but get mixed messaged about what this is and find this confusing
can cause symptoms of disorganised thinking and paranoid delusions
expressed emotion
a high expressed emotion household contains :
1) verbal criticism
2) hostility
3) emotional over involvement
can worsen schizophrenia symptoms and can cause relapse
evaluation of family dysfunction
parent blaming
support for double blind
lack of evidence
parent blaming (FAMILY DYSFUNCTION EVALUATION)
theories are socially sensitive
they blame the parent for the cause or relapse of their child’s schizophrenia
support for double blind (FAMILY DYSFUNCTION EVALUATION)
Berger (1965)
- found that schizophrenics reported a higher recall of double blind statements made by their mother, than non-schizophrenics
lack of evidence (FAMILY DYSFUNCTION EVALUATION)
the theories of schizophrenic mother and double blind have no systematic evidence to support them
are based on informal assessments
cognitive explanations
schizophrenia can be explained through different types of dysfunctional thinking
Firth et al (1992)
- identified 2 types of dysfunctional thought processing
dysfunctional thinking
metarepresentation dysfunction
central control dysfunction
metarepresentation dysfunction
experienced as having difficulty in recognising that our own behaviours/thoughts are being carried out by ourselves rather than another person
explains symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions (positive symptoms)
central control dysfunction
the inability to suppress our automatic thoughts and the speech triggered by our own thoughts
explains the symptom of speech poverty or disorganised speech (negative symptoms)
linked to delusions (positive symptoms)
evaluation of cognitive explanations
PET scans
research support
diathesis stress model
PET scans (COGNITIVE EXPLANATIONS EVALUATION)
PET scans show under activity in the frontal lobe of the brain which is linked to self-monitoring
schizophrenics have less control over self-monitoring
research support (COGNITIVE EXPLANATIONS EVALUATION)
Stirling et al (2006)
- found schizophrenics took twice as long to complete the troop test
- suggests impaired cognitive processing
