Psychological explanations Flashcards
What is family dysfunction?
Family dysfunction
- Processes that occur within a family, acting as risk factors in the development of schizophrenia
What is the schizophrenogenic mother?
Family dysfunction
- Fromm-Reichmann proposed a psychodynamic explanation for schizophrenia based on accounts she heard about patient’s childhoods
- Schizophrenogenic mother= cold, rejecting, controlling, tend to create family climate characterised by tension/ secrecy
- Schizophrenogenic= schizophrenia causing
- Leads to distrust, that later develops into paranoid delusions and ultimately schizophrenia
What is the doublie-bind theory?
Family dysfunction
- Developing child= finds themselves trapped in situations where they fear doing the wrong thing, but receive mixed messages about what this is, and feel unable to comment on the unfairness of the situation/seek clarification
- When they get it wrong, they are punished by withdrawal of love
- Children left with an understanding of the world as confusing/dangerous- reflected in symptoms (paranoid delusions/disorganised thinking)
What did Bateson say about the double-bind theory?
Family dysfunction
- Family climate is important in development of schizophrenia, but emphasised role of communication style in families
- This was neither the main type of communication in the family of someone with schizophrenia, nor the only factor in the development
What is expressed emotion?
Family dysfunction
- Level of emotion expressed towards someone with schizophrenia, by their carers
- High levels directed towards the individual are a serious source of stress
- An explanation for relapse
Contains several elements: - Verbal criticism (usually accompanied by violence)
- Hostility (including anger/rejection)
- Emotional overinvolvement in their life (including needless self-sacrifice)
Strength-
I- Research support
Family dysfunction
D- Indicators of family dysfunction include insecure attachment and exposure to childhood trauma (abuse). Read et al’s review found that schizophrenic adults are disproportionately likey to have insecure attachments. 69% women and 59% men with schizophrenia have history of physical/sexual abuse. Morkved et al- most schizophrenic adilts reported at least one childhood trauma
E- Suggests family dysfunction makes people more vulnerable to schizophrenia
Limitation-
I- Explanations lack support
Family dysfunction
D- Very little evidence to support traditional family-based theories (schizophrenogenic mother/double-bind). Both theories are based on clinical observatoon and informal assessment of their mother’s personalities, but there is no systematic evidence
E- Means family explanations do not account for the link between childhood trauma and schizophrenia
Evaluation extra-
I- Parent-blaming
Family dysfunction
D- Research may be useful in showing the link between insecure attachment and childhood trauma on schizophrenia- allows us to quash, not ignore earlier theories. But, research is socially sensitive as it may lead to parent-blaming. Psych theories should not cause harm, but these 2 do
E- Means research is controversial
What are cognitive explanations?
Cognitive explanations
- Explain schizophrenia, by focusing on mental processes
What is dsyfunctional thinking?
Cognitive explanations
- Schizophrenia associated with several types of dysfunctional thought processing- provide explanations
- Schizophrenia is characterised by disruption to normal thought processing
- Reduced thought processing in ventral striatum associated with negative symptoms
- Reduced thought processing of info in temporal and cingulate gyri associated with hallucinations (Simon et al)
What is metarepresentation dysfunction?
Cognitive explanations
- Frith et al identified 2 kinds of dysfunctional thought process
- Metarepresentation= cognitive ability to reflect on thoughts/behaviour
- Allows us insight into our own intentions/goals- allowing us to interpret actions of others
- Dysfunction in metarepresentation disrupts our ability to recognise our own actions/thoughts as being carried out by ourselves, rather than someone else
- Explains hallucinations of hearing voices and delusions (thought insertion)
What is central control dysfunction?
Cognitive explanations
- Frith et al identified issues with cognitive ability to supress automatic responses while we perform deliberate actions
- Speech poverty/thought disorder results from inability to supress automatic thoughts/speech, triggered by other thoughts
- E.g: derailment of thoughts- each word triggers associations, and the individual cannot supresses automatic responses to these
Strength-
I- Research support
Cognitive explanations
D- Stirling et al compared performance on a range of cognitive tasks in 30 people with schizophrenia and control group of 30 without. Tasks included stroop task- in which participants must supresses tendencies to read words aloud. As predicted by central control theory, schizphrenic people took 2x longer to name colour-fonts
E- Means cognitive processes of schizophrenic people may be impaired
Limitation-
I- Proximal explanation
Cognitive explanations
D- Cognitive explanations= proximal, as they explain what is happening now to produce symptoms, vs distal explanations, which focus on what initially caused the condition. Possible distal explanations= genetic and family dysfunction explanations. Genetic variation/childhood trauma leading to problems with metarepresentation/ central control is currently unclear/ poorly addressed
E- Means cognitive theories alone provide partial explanations
Evaluation extra-
I- Psychological or biological?
Cognitive explanations
D- Cognitive approach provides excellent explanation for symptoms and sees schizophrenia as primarily pscyhological. Both positive and negative symoptoms are psychological in nature. But, it appears that schizophrenia is partly genetic in origin and the result of abnormal brain development (Toulopoulou). Even environmental influences appear to operate on a biological level, affecting brain development
E- Means that schizophrenia is perhaps best seen as a biological condition
