Psychological Explanations Flashcards
The schizophrengenic mother
Characterised as being cold and rejecting. This means that the family climate is tense and lacking honesty, which leads to the development of paranoia and anxiety. These feelings manifest themselves in the (positive) schizophrenic symptom of paranoid delusions.
Double bind theory
Bateson - the child receives mixed messages from both parents about what is right or wrong. The tense atmosphere or controlling parenting style means that the child is unable to clarify these messages or voice their opinions about the unfairness
of conflicting messages. When the child makes a mistake they are punished through a withdrawal of love. This means that the child sees the world as unfair and confusing due to this confliction, as reflected in the schizophrenic symptoms of disorganised thinking and paranoid
delusions.
Expressed emotions
Describes the level and type of emotion shown towards the patient by their
carer, and is often a significant source of stress for the patient. This means that they are less likely to take their medication or comply to cognitive therapies provided by their hospital or institution, hence
being a leading cause for relapse.
Metarepresentations - Frith et al
The cognitive ability to differentiate between our own actions and the actions
of others, allowing us insight into the intentions and emotions as others, as well as maintaining a realistic/functional view of our own goals and intentions. Dysfunctions in metarepresentation have been associated with auditory hallucinations, and specifically thought insertion, due to the inability to differentiate between our own thoughts and that of others. This may lead to paranoid delusions due to the contents of inserting others’ thoughts into the mind of the patient.
Central control - Frith et al
The cognitive ability to carry out a deliberate action whilst suppressing an
automatic response, and is often measured using the Stroop Test. This test involves identifying the colour of each word, where there is often a discrepancy e.g. the word ‘brown’ written in a yellow font. Therefore, the automatic response of reading the word must be suppressed, to allow for identification of the font colour. People with SZ often have dsyfunctional central control abilities, and so often suffer from derailment because they cannot suppress the automatic associations that each
new word in a sentence brings, and so begin to talk off-topic.
- P - A comparison can be made between biological and psychological explanations for schizophrenia
E - The explanation does not take into account biological factors of schizophrenia.
E - Since such biological factors can explain the distal origins of schizophrenia (e.g. dopamine levels in the brain), this suggests that psychological explanations would best be reserved for the proximal causes of SZ, as these causes are more likely to be most affected by psychological factors.
L - Therefore, psychological explanations of schizophrenia fail to acknowledge the impact of biological factors on schizophrenia.
+ P - RS for dysfunctional though processes
E - Sterling et al found that SZ sufferers made significantly more mistakes and twice as long to complete the task, compared to a healthy neurotypical control group.
E - However, it should be emphasised that dysfunctional thought processing
can only offer explanations for the indirect, proximal causes of SZ, and not the distal causes, meaning that such theories can explain the symptoms but not the origin of SZ.
L - This limits the utility of psychological explanations for schizophrenia.
- P - Lack of support for family based explanations
E - The idea of the schizophrenogenic mother was based upon historical observations of families with SZ members, where observers would be searching for ‘crazy-making characteristics’ (Harrington) which is
hardly an objective and reliable indicator of the likelihood of developing SZ.
E - Psychological explanations also place an increasing amount of blame on the families and caregivers of patients with SZ, as opposed to accommodating for the possibility of a genetic/biological predisposition. For example, caregivers/ parents are further hurt when they are forced to accept responsibility for their patient’s schizophrenia, which is likely to have already upset family life and relationships through the development of severe and intrusive negative and positive symptoms.
L - This may explain the sudden
popularity of community care in the 1980s, which could have marked parents refusing to take responsibility for their child’s condition, seeing as they are so dedicated to their care.
