Psychological Explanations Flashcards
Which 3 sub explanations make up the family dysfunction explanation of Schizophrenia?
Double Bind Theory
High Expressed Emotion
Schizophregenic Mother
Explanation 1 - Double bind theory (Family Dysfunction)
This is where the parents paralinguistics do not match their verbal communication. The child therefore receives two different messages which contradict each other and causes conflict as whatever the child does they cannot win. They revert to their psychosis to escape the conflict caused through hallucinations and delusions.
Explanation 2 - High Expressed Emotion (Family Dysfunction)
Families that engage in high expressed emotion show high levels of guilt, criticism and emotional over protectiveness which has been shown to play a key role in maintain SZ symptoms.
Hostility - A negative attitude directed at the patient as the family feels the disorder is controllable and the patient is choosing to not get better
Emotional Over Involvement - The family blames themselves for the disorder and show a lot of concern but can make the patient feel guilty and causes them too much stress
Critical Comments - Combination of Hostility and EOI. Show openess that is isnt the patients fault but there is still some negative criticism
Opposite is low EE which consists of warmth and positive regard
Explanation 3 - Schizophrenogenic mother (Family Dysfunction)
A mother who is cold, controlling, rejecting which causes excessive stress. To cope with this the child retreats into psychotic thinking (hallucinations and delusions)
EVALUATION of family dysfunction explanation of schizophrenia
STRENGTH - research support - SZ patients in HEE household were 4x more likely to relapse than those in LEE family and SZ mothers were more likely to give double bind statements than non Sz controls - Therefore FD valid as otherwise HEE would not create higher relapse - however self report and open to social desirability bias
WEAKNESS - individual differences in how stressful a SZ patient finds family dysfunction - 25% of SZs did not have psychological arousal response to critical comments from parents - therefore CC was not a stressor they needed to escape from - theory too socially sensitive as it blames mother and family for causing sz
WEAKNESS - correlation between mother and sz child could be biological - study found no difference between SZ and their families parental communication - in fact adoption studies show children with biological parents that have SZ are more likely to also develop it - maybe family dysfunction just measures the mothers own sz symptoms and hence inheritied not environmentally caused - however adoption study also found when the adoptive parents were HEE likelihood of developing sz increased (diathesis stress model more likely)
Explanation 4 - Egocentric Bias (Cognitive Explanation)
This is the tendency to rely too heavily on ones own perspective. The SZ person sees themselves as the central component and patients may jump to conclusions about external events and relate irrelevent ones to themsleves and therefore arrive at false conclusions - delusions
Explanation 5 - Dysfunctional Meta-representation
Meta representation is the cognitive ability to reflect on thoughts, experiences and behaviour. When this fails ones own thoughts may be misattribited to coming from an external source - eg confusing the sound of their own thoughts with an external spoken voice - hallucinations and delusions
Explanation 6 - Loss of Central Control
This is the inability to suppress automatic reposnses whilst performing deliberate actions. This is tested with the STROOP test. SZ perform poorly on this compared to healthy controls - disorganised speech as unable to suppress thoughts
Explanation 7 - Hypervigilance
Some research suggests that people with SZ suffer from hypervigilance and they are in a state of heightened alertness, anxiety or extreme thought processes - gives an excessive attention to auditory stimuli which leads to a higher expectation of hallucinations
EVALUATION of cognitive explanation of Schizophrenia
STRENGTH - research support for central control dysfunction - 30 sz patients and 18 without, completed a STROOP test and sz took 2x longer to complete it - suggests sz have difficulty suppressing their automatic thoughts and therefore explains disorganised speech - however the study makes inferences about the internal mental processes deficit that is occurring from a reaction time.
WEAKNESS - the cognitive explanation is reductionist - it ignores other aspects that can account for sz eg social adversity, family dysfunction and genetics - it explains the cognitive is the cause but not how the thoughts become dysfunctional - maybe it is a symptom and not the underlying cause - interactionist approach is more suitable
