Psychological explanations Flashcards
In a 16 marker, what would be the opening sentence to outline the two psychological explanations?
There are two main psychological explanations for schizophrenia. One focuses on the role family dynamics play and the other emphasises the role of abnormal cognition in schizophrenics
What are the two psychological explanations for schizophrenia?
Family dysfunction and Cognitive Explanations
What are the three aspects of family dysfunction?
The schizophrenogenic mother
The double bind theory
Expressed emotion
Outline the schizophrenogenic mother explanation of family dysfunction (Fromm Reichmann)
Fromm - Reichmann proposed the schizophrenogenic mother who is described as cold, rejecting and controlling.
A mother who creates a family climate characterised by tension and secrecy.
This leads to distrust that lead develops into paranoid delusions, and ultimately schizophrenia
Outline the double - bind theory continued explanation of family dysfunction (Bateson et al)
Bateson agreed family climate was important in the development but emphasises the role communication styles played within family
Poor communication styles within families lead to a negative and stressful climate
The child is often fearful of making mistakes and when they do, they are confused about the right way to behave due to mixed messages
This leaves them misunderstanding the world, thinking it is confusing and dangerous. These are reflected in symptoms like disorganized thinking and paranoid delusions
Outline the expressed emotion explanation of psychological explanations
The expressed emotion explanation states the level of emotion, primarily negative, expressed towards a schizophrenic person by their carers is a source of serious stress
This can be seen in several elements like emotional over-involvement in the life of the person or verbal criticism of the person, accompanied by violence
For example, if a carer says to a child, “I love you” but with an angry tone and mixed within verbal criticisms, this will just worsen the schizophrenic person’s stress levels
What are the two aspects of the cognitive explanation?
Metarepresentation and Central control
What is a strength of the family dysfunction explanation? (level of schizophrenia + nurture + ecological validity)
Tienari et al found the level of schizophrenia in adopted individuals who were the biological children of schizophrenogenic mothers was 5.8% in these adopted by healthy families compared to 36.8% for children raised in dysfunctional families.
This suggests that nurture can help to reduce the development of schizophrenia.
Additionally it shows the psychological explanation for family dysfunction holds ecological validity
Outline the metarepresentation aspect of the cognitive explanation (reflection)
Metarepresentation is the ability to reflect on thoughts and behaviour.
A person with schizophrenia has dysfunction in this cognitive ability. This means there is a failure to recognise their thoughts and voices in their head, are their own
This explains why people with schizophrenia have auditory hallucinations
Outline the central control aspect of psychological explanations
Central control is the ability to suppress automatic thoughts. A person with schizophrenia cannot do this.
This means their thoughts are disorganised and the sentences spoken lack arrangement, this is displayed as speech poverty
When a schizophrenic person speaks, they will change topics during conversations because each word spoken will trigger an association which they fail to suppress
What is a limitation of the family dysfunction aspect of psychological explanation? (lack of support)
There is a lack of general support for family dysfunction to be a causal factor of schizophrenia. Research seems to suggest that family dysfunction, particularly, expressed emotion plays a role in maintenance of the disorder. Rather than dysfunctions, within families causing schizophrenia, it could be that having a schizophrenic within that family leads to dysfunction. This shows there is lack of reliability in this theory to fully explain schizophrenia
What is a limitation of the cognitive explanation aspect of psychological explanations? (hallucinations = easy to shift thinking?)
Some critics argue that if the explanation for hallucinations is biased information processing, it should be possible to persuade a person with schizophrenia of the reality. However, this is not the case as it is difficult to shift their thinking. Therefore, it can be concluded that the cognitive explanation lacks ecological validity as it cannot be used to base treatment plans on
