Psychological Explanations

Question 1

What are the 2 psychological explanations for schizophrenia?

Answer 1

• Family dysfunction explanations of schizophrenia
• Cognitive explanations

Question 2

What is the family dysfunction explanation?

Answer 2

The idea that the problems within a family contribute to onset and relapse of schizophrenia.

Question 3

Explain the schizophrenogenic mother and who proposed it.

Answer 3

Fromm-Reichmann proposed that schizophrenia comes from being reared by a cold and dominant mother who is both overprotective and rejecting. She uses the child to satisfy her own emotional needs

Question 4

Explain the double-blind hypothesis and who proposed it.

Answer 4

Bateson proposed the double-blind hypothesis which suggested that schizophrenia is a reaction to a pathological parent presenting the child with a no win situation which is created by contradictory communication between tone of voice and content.

Question 5

What are cognitive deficits

Answer 5

Occur when people with schizophrenia experience problems with attention, communication and information overload.

Question 6

What are cognitive biases

Answer 6

Refers to selective attention including delusions (of persecution mostly) and auditory hallucinations

Question 7

What are dysfunctional thought processing

Answer 7

Meta-representation: our ability to reflect on thoughts and behavior, allowing us to identify goals and actions and interpreting other peoples actions

Central control: our ability to suppress automatic responses while we perform deliberate actions instead e.g. derailment of thoughts and spoken words.